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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
















































































' 













LIFE’S LESSONS 


BOOKS BY FATHER GARESCHE 

Published by Benziger Brothers 

In Same Uniform Series 

Each, Net, $1.50; Postage, 10 Cents 

THE PATHS OF GOODNESS. Some Helpful 
Thoughts on 'Spiritual Progress. 

It is a most readable book.— Catholic Bulletin. 

YOUR OWN HEART. Some Helps to understand it. 
The Author knows how to talk of men’s faults 
so as to inspire them to do better.— The Fort¬ 
nightly Review). 

YOUR SOUL’S 'SALVATION. Instructions on 
Personal Holiness. 

We know of no spiritual book which deserves 
to have a larger vogue amongst Catholics.— 
Rosary Magazine. 

THE THINGS IMMORTAL. Spiritual thoughts 
for everyday reading. 

The subjects are most important, the treatment 
simple, practical and persuasive.— Catholic 
World. 

YOUR INTERESTS ETERNAL. Our service to 
Our Heavenly Father. 

He presents immortal truths in a direct way 
that enlists attention and arouses zeal.— 
Catholic School Journal. 

THE MOST BELOVED WOMAN. The Preroga¬ 
tives and Glories of the Blessed Mother of God. 
It is enjoyable, very interesting, edifying and 
highly instructive.— Dominicana. 

YOUR NEIGHBOR AND YOU. Our dealings 
with those about us. 

Should be in every Catholic library and every 
busy Catholic should read it.— St. Xavier’s 
Calendar. 


SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN PARISHES. 

Net, $2.75. Postage 15 Cents. 

Brimful of ideas it will be of practical aid to 
Reverend Pastors in their varied Parish Activi¬ 
ties, while Reverend Curates, Supervisors of 
Schools and Charitable Institutions, as also 
Officers in charge of and directing Sodalities, 
Societies and Fraternal Organizations will find 
it a practical guide for all purposes. 








THE MADONNA OF THE ROCKS 
Da Vinci 





LIFE’S LESSONS 


SOME USEFUL TEACHINGS 
OF EVERY DAY 


BY 

REV. EDWARD F. GARESCHE, S.J. 



New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PRINTERS TO THE | PUBLISHERS OF 

HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE ; BENZIGER’s MAGAZINE 

1921 









.Gr^ 


flmprtmt potest, 

FRANCIS X. McMENAMY, S.J., 

Praep. Prov. Missourianiae 


fUbtl ©bstat. 

ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D., 

Censor Ltbrorum 


Imprimatur. 

*PATRICK J. HAYES, D.D. 

Archbishop of New York 


New York, July 19, 1921 


OCT 20 1921 


Copyright, 1921, by Benziger Brothers 


§>CI.A624899 


Dedication 

On this feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph, 
may that beloved Patriarch offer to his most 
Virginal Spouse this little token of great love: 

TO THE MOST BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, 
TOWER OF DAVID 










PREFACE 

E are all of us pupils in life’s classes, 



forever getting our lessons, some¬ 
times pretty sharp and hard ones, 


in the school of experience. Rude though it 
sometimes be, none other compares with it 
for excellence of teaching. 

It is well for us though, to do as all good 
scholars do—to make a repetition now and 
then of the lessons we have learned. The 
following brief papers may serve to help in 
that interesting and profitable task of recast¬ 
ing and formulating for ourselves some of 
life’s lessons. 

Those readers in particular who come to 
this book after having gone through the pre¬ 
ceding volumes—Your Neighbor and You, 
Your Interests Eternal, Your Soul’s Salva¬ 
tion, The Most Beloved Woman, The 
Things Immortal, Your Own Heart, The 
Paths of Goodness, Children of Mary—will 
not need to be told that the purpose of this 


7 


8 Preface 

book is practical, its style direct, its message 
personal. 

We repeat once more our sincere thanks 
and appreciation to those kind friends, known 
and unknown, who have helped to give to this 
series so wide a favor. We ask too, once 
more, of all gentle readers, a prayer for the 
writer hereof. 

Feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph . 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Dedication - ...... s . 5 

Preface ....... s s 7 

Our Little Kingdom . * . s .11 

By Other Men . . . a . s . 22 

A Vice of Good People . . s „ . 33 

Discouragement . . . , s . . 44 

Our Stronger Weaknesses .... 55 

Mixed Motives ....... 67 

On Being Individual ...... 77 

On Going Too Far ...... 86 

About Dying ....**.. 97 

The Holy Angels ...... 107 

On Motives . . . , , . . .119 

Reparation . . , . . . . .130 

Life's Teaching . . * * * . .140 

On Learning Happiness . a , . .150 

Catholic Hospitals . . .. . . .160 

Will You? ........ 162 

Family Prayer . . . . . . .164 


9 














10 


Contents 


Wanted .... 


s 


PAGE 

. . 167 

[n Missionary Days . 



• 

. 169 

The Good People . 


f 

• 

. 172 

The Heart of Worship 


* 

• 

• 175 

Closer .... 




. 177 

An Efficient Means . 

• 

• 


. l80 

The Piety of Lay Folk 

• 

• 

9 

. 183 

A Book a Year 

• 

% 


. 186 

The Patrons of Art . 


• 

9 

. 188 

The People , s , 

* 

t 

■ 

9 I9I 







LIFE’S LESSONS 


OUR LITTLE KINGDOM 

O LD writers on spiritual subjects love 
very much to make a comparison be¬ 
tween our complicated selves with all 
our faculties and powers—an unruly lot, but 
governed in some sort by our will—and a 
temporal kingdom, the various classes and 
individuals of which are gathered together 
into a body politic and ruled by a king. 
They love to draw out the comparison, these 
benignant old writers, and to point out that 
the will is like a blind king seated on his 
throne and sending out his commands to this 
or that part of his kingdom. By his side sits 
his queen—the intelligence—who tells him 
how to rule, and, because he cannot see for 
himself, serves, so to speak, as his eyes to 
discern what is right or wrong, expedient or 
foolish. About him are grouped his courtiers 
—the faculties of the mind and of the body— 
which carry out his commands more or less 


12 Our Little Kingdom 

perfectly, while at the same time they besiege 
him for favors and deafen his ears with peti¬ 
tions. Sometimes their clamors almost drown 
the voice of the queenly intelligence, who 
speaks gently and low, while they howl and 
scream. The poor old king, swayed this way 
and that by these various voices, will have a 
hard time of it indeed unless he listens to the 
sweet, clear promptings of the intelligence. 
If he yields to the clamorous rantings of the 
passions, or the insistent demands of the 
senses, he will govern his kingdom all awry 
and bring it to ruin. 

It is a fair comparison enough, and if we 
ponder on it, it will give us some light and 
some consolation concerning our often puz¬ 
zling and vexatious selves. Once we under¬ 
stand the nature of our little kingdom and 
learn how it is to be governed, many of the 
puzzles of life and character resolve them¬ 
selves. Our will is really the king of our 
entire being. This lordly faculty alone is free 
and can determine for itself its own deliberate 
actions. It can choose or refuse, grant or 
deny, act or refrain from action, of its own 
volition independently of circumstances and 
sometimes in direct contradiction to every¬ 
thing that is expected of it. It is a law to 


Our Little Kingdom 13 

itself, and, unlike the other faculties of the 
soul, the powers of the body and all inanimate 
nature, it can, under precisely the same cir¬ 
cumstances, do now one thing, now another, 
perform now one action, now the opposite, 
in all this not swayed by exterior influences 
only, but moving itself by its own mysterious 
faculty of self-determination. 

It is the freedom of this kingly faculty 
which gives great dignity to human nature, 
makes us responsible for our free actions and 
is at the foundation of merit and of guilt. In 
this we differ from all other material beings, 
that we are free and responsible. For this 
reason we deserve praise for choosing to do 
good and blame for choosing to do evil. If 
we were not free we should not be responsible 
and would therefore deserve neither blame 
nor praise for doing what we could not help. 
But having it in our power to do evil, we 
deserve credit for doing good; and because 
we might have done what was good but 
chose to do what was evil, we therefore de¬ 
serve blame. Consequently, human beings are 
judged for their actions and esteemed or cen¬ 
sured because their wills are free. Animals, 
which have not free will, and children or 
lunatics, who do not possess the use of their 


14 Our Little Kingdom 

free will, are not praised or blamed for what 
they cannot help. It is those who are free, 
and therefore responsible, who deserve and 
receive credit or condemnation for what they 
freely do. 

Our free will, therefore, sits in the soul 
enthroned in rule, and all the day long 
through all our conscious hours is busy 
choosing good or evil. All the day long our 
senses, our imagination, memory and intelli¬ 
gence are presenting to this blind monarch 
suggestions, advice, petitions, warnings, 
pleadings, trying to get the will to do this or 
that, refuse one thing and grant another, 
yield to temptation or strongly choose what 
is good, turn away from this action and in¬ 
cline toward that other. In times of special 
stress, indecision, wavering or temptation we 
can almost feel the efforts of our will to come 
to a decision, make a choice, decide firmly for 
one part or the other. At the same time our 
consciousness informs us of the various in¬ 
fluences which are tugging and straining at 
the will, dragging it now this way, now the 
other, trying their level best to get this blind 
monarch of our little kingdom to come their 
vi ay and take their side. 

But even in the quiet moments when we 


Our Little Kingdom 15 

are not conscious of any struggle, our will is 
still busy choosing, is still occupied in the 
government of the microcosm of our mind 
and body and soul. As circumstances come 
to our attention, as line after line of conduct 
is suggested to us, as all the small doors of 
opportunity which line our path open and 
close as we pass them, the will is forever busy 
picking and choosing, governing the way of 
the soul, determining for better or worse our 
path in the world. The history of our lives 
of merit and deliberate action will be found 
to consist on the day of our particular judg¬ 
ment merely of a history of the free actions 
of our will. 

But though this kingly power sits firmly 
enthroned in the soul and governs also our 
body, the rule of the will is, in some regards, 
not despotic but politic. That is to say, there 
are many things in us which the will cannot 
control absolutely and directly, but which it 
must deal with in a roundabout way and 
rather by persuasion than by direct command. 
In regard to many things, of course, the will 
can immediately and definitely give orders 
which will be carried out upon the instant. 
When we are in good health our limbs are 
under the direct control of the will, and we 


16 Our Little Kingdom 

can raise our hand to strike or lift our eyes 
to heaven by merely willing to do so. In 
some mysterious way this command of the 
will gets from the soul into our members, and 
without our knowing how the thing happens 
or being able to explain our power, our hand 
rises when we wish it to do so and our eyes 
are lifted when we will to look upward. 

But all the faculties of our body and soul 
are not in such complete subjection to the 
will. The imagination and the memory, 
not to speak of many bodily faculties, are 
only under the dominion of the will to a cer¬ 
tain degree. Memory is freakish enough, but 
our imagination is still more so. The mem¬ 
ory will recall things we do not care to recall, 
and will sometimes quite refuse to answer 
the command of the will to summon up some 
recollection that we much desire to recall. 
Sometimes the more we try to remember a 
thing the more our memory refuses; but when 
we give up trying to think of it, of a sudden 
it flashes back into our recollection. Over 
this faculty, therefore, the will has only a 
limited control. Sometimes it can instantly 
obtain what it wishes by a mere command. 
On other occasions it must coax and tease, 


Our Little Kingdom 17 

and have recourse to various persuasions 
before the stubborn memory will yield. 

Over that freakish faculty called the 
imagination the will has still less of despotic 
sway. The fancy is the lightest and most 
foolish of our faculties. Like a will-o’-the- 
wisp, it dances in the dark marshes of the 
mind. There is no calculating its vagaries, 
and sometimes there is no controlling its 
whims. Now it will obey the sharp command 
of the will and cease its fooling, the next mo¬ 
ment it will be off on some new frolic, 
teasing the intellect, distracting the memory 
and wearying the will to keep it in subjection. 
It is like a wild lad of the court or, better 
still perhaps, like the court jester. Yet it is 
a most precious aid both to the intelligence 
and the will, and, for all its folly, like the 
court jester it can sometimes sound the very 
depths of wisdom. But the will must man¬ 
age it by a careful and politic sway, rather 
than by despotic sternness. To know how 
to manage one’s imagination so as to get 
the most good out of it and the least evil, is 
one of the finest points of the diplomacy of 
our little kingdom. 

The passions too, must be ruled with 


18 Our Little Kingdom 

politic sway. Sometimes, and by some strong 
natures, the emotions and the passions can 
be sternly repressed by the will like dogs that 
are held in leash, or spirited horses which 
a masterful rider with a strong snaffle-bit can 
tame and check in an instant. But at other 
times, the passions defy the authority of the 
will, and rage and storm in spite of its pro¬ 
hibition. In such a case, there is nothing for 
the will to do but gradually and indirectly to 
subdue them, sometimes by taking away their 
food, on which they have grown too strong, 
sometimes by diverting their eagerness to 
another object. Over some of the senses, 
too, the will has only an indirect and politic 
sway. When sound enters the ears, or light 
the eyes, one needs must hear or see; one can 
only close one’s eyes and one’s ears if one 
wishes to keep these faculties from evil. 
They will listen to the commands of the will 
only in this indirect fashion. The will may 
rule them indeed, but only by taking from 
them the occasion of their action. 

Over the emotions also, the will has but a 
politic sway. When grief or shame are upon 
us, we can only in part repress the surging 
waves of feeling that sweep over the soul. 
Those of strong will and trained self-control 


Our Little Kingdom 19 

are indeed able at times almost wholly to 
repress the rising of their emotions. But for 
most mortals it is only by avoiding the occa¬ 
sion of these things, that one can completely 
still their turbulence in the soul. With some, 
■whose feelings are unusually susceptible, the 
will has a terrific time of it keeping them in 
any sort of check at all. Those ill-fated per¬ 
sons who are quite at the mercy of their feel¬ 
ings and have lost control of their impulses, 
find themselves tossed about like a skiff in a 
gust, from wave to wave of impulse and feel¬ 
ing. It is only by the most careful self- 
discipline and by avoidance of the occasions 
of strong feeling, that they can recover the 
the empire over self which they have lost. 

If one reflects a bit on these considerations, 
one will reach many wise conclusions con¬ 
cerning self-discipline and the management 
of one’s own heart and soul. It is an unruly 
little kingdom, this body and soul of ours 
which we have been set to govern, and a very 
great deal of our success in ruling it will 
depend on the politic care which we take to 
guide our faculties away from evil and to¬ 
ward good. To keep one’s self away from 
temptation, to deprive one’s senses, passions, 
impulses, memory and imagination, of the 


20 


Our Little Kingdom 

objects which will incite them to evil, is a 
much wiser course than to try to control them 
when once they have got the bit between their 
teeth and are running away on the road to 
ruin. To rule one’s lower self by taking away 
the occasions of evil is a far wiser and more 
successful plan than to struggle to regain 
one’s lost self-control after the temptation 
one might have avoided has done its disas¬ 
trous worst. 

These reflections, too, may be some con¬ 
solation to those who find their little kingdom 
a difficult one to govern, and grow disheart¬ 
ened because they seem to be meeting with 
such scant success. No wonder one’s 
imagination sometimes grows freakish, one’s 
feelings turbulent, one’s passions wild. It 
would be strange if the devil, the world, and 
the flesh, with their works and pomps, did 
not sometimes stir up rebellions in the dif¬ 
ferent provinces whereof our little empire is 
composed. But it is consoling to remember 
that all the troubles that are stirred up wfithin 
our soul’s and body’s realm can do us no evil 
so long as the will, its lord and king, listens 
to the voice of reason, which is the voice of 
conscience, and endeavors to govern its do¬ 
main according to her words. That still, 


21 


Our Little Kingdom 

small voice is forever telling us of our 
duty, and it is the diligence of our will, 
endeavoring to carry out always the dictates 
of the love of God, that makes our merit here 
and our glory afterwards. Not all the storms 
and wild rebellions that the rude devil and 
world and flesh can conjure up within us 
shall detract one tittle from our merit, so 
long as our lordly will holds steadfastly to 
what is right, and strives to rule our little 
kingdom of soul and body by the voice of 
conscience, which is the voice of reason telling 
us the law of God. 


BY OTHER MEN 


I T is odd how the application even of 
most obvious truths to our own selves 
and our own spheres of action, will 
sometimes elude us. Facts that we know 
quite well and even have perhaps often pon¬ 
dered over, will reveal a new significance to 
us in some moment of inspiration. Then we 
see with disconcerting clearness the path we 
should have followed. We are quite dum- 
founded in the light of this new experience, 
and cannot understand why we did not see so 
simple a truth and realize so obvious a duty 
long before. 

There is a principle of God’s dealings with 
men which, rightly realized, is very like to 
bring us such floods of sudden enlightenment 
and of corresponding self-reproach. It is a 
principle so very obvious that it needs no 
proof whatever. Anyone with the slightest 
experience of life will instantly perceive its 
truth. Yet to apply this principle to our own 
actions and to discern what duties it imposes 
on ourselves, seems, even to good peo¬ 
ple, one of the most difficult points of 
spiritual realization. The principle in ques- 
22 


By Other Men 23 

tion is this: that in God’s ordinary provi¬ 
dence whereby He rules the world, men 
are to be taught, admonished, comforted 
and saved through the ministrations of 
other men, and that they can be taught 
and saved only by those who come in contact 
with them in the usual ways of life. 

Faith comes by hearing. We learn from 
one another the teaching of the Church, the 
commands of God. Not by the message of 
angels, not by interior revelation, not by 
communing with the dead, are men brought 
to the faith, instructed to salvation, helped to 
heaven, but by their intercourse with other 
men, by the help of those others and their 
good example. By the ministry of other men 
we have all been brought to the faith; by our 
ministry God designs to bring to the faith all 
whom we can reach and influence. 

Going back over your own experience, you 
will be able to perceive with extreme ease the 
truth of this remark so far as concerns your 
own knowledge of the faith and of the ways 
of goodness. Whatever you know of the 
doctrines of Christ, have you not received it 
all from others? Either by hearing what 
they said or reading what they have written, 
you have acquired everything you know about 


24 By Other Men 

Christ and His teaching. If those who have 
instructed you in these ways had remained 
silent, or refused to write, and if all others 
had likewise failed to share with you the 
truths they knew, you would at this moment 
be as utterly ignorant of Christian doctrine as 
a tribesman of Zanzibar. Indeed, you can 
trace the genealogy of every Christian truth 
you know, through generation after genera¬ 
tion back to the lips of Christ. Those from 
whose words or writings you have heard or 
read these truths, read or heard them in turn 
from another who, on his part, heard or read 
them from yet another. That other received 
the same truths in the same fashion from still 
another; and so, back through the great 
reaches of time, year after year, century after 
century, epoch after epoch, until you come 
to the day when the Son of God, clothed in 
our flesh, spoke to His apostles, who have in 
turn spoken to other men who spoke to yet 
others until the long tradition of Christian 
teaching, sounding down the years, has 
reached even to you. 

It has required the faithful co-operation 
of a very great number of successive teachers, 
each handing on what he or she had received 
from others, to bring to you at this late day 


By Other Men 25 

of the world the full and true teaching of 
Christ. Above all these teachers, the au¬ 
thentic interpreter of Christ’s doctrine, the 
repository of His full and true faith, the 
guardian of the word of God, His holy 
Church, watches over His truth and preserves 
it in its full and perfect integrity. Yet, even 
the voice of the Church comes to us through 
human teachers. The faith and salvation 
of men is brought about through the ministry 
of other men. 

What is true of the faith is also true, but 
in a lesser degree, of most virtues and most 
knowledge that you have within you. It 
reached you through the effort and the min¬ 
istry of those with whom you came in contact. 
Take any bit of learning you possess. What 
is its ancestry? Did it not come to you 
through hearing or reading? Is it not a gift 
from someone who was good enough either 
to tell you or write out for you what he him¬ 
self had in all likelihood received from some 
other? It is true we can and do originate for 
ourselves knowledge, and develop for our¬ 
selves personal opinions. We cordially de¬ 
test and repudiate, of course, the philosophic 
error called Traditionalism. Yet if we could 
sift out what is truly ours from what we 


2 6 


By Other Men 

have received from others, the latter would 
far exceed the former. Who can doubt it? 

So, too, our good qualities are in great 
measure developed by the aid of others. The 
force of example is so tremendous, the con¬ 
stant influence which others have on us so 
masterful and compelling, that we become 
used to it as w6 do to the force of gravity. 
Yet we have all our lives been observing 
others and imitating them. Our character 
as it is, we owe in large measure to the influ¬ 
ence of both the words and acts of others 
upon us. 

These reflections may seem almost too 
obvious to need to be dwelt upon, yet if we 
suddenly and sharply turn the shield, we shall 
see how much others depend on us for the 
same service which we ourselves have re¬ 
ceived. There was a group of persons which 
Providence put about us on whom our destiny 
in great measure depended. If any one of 
them had been less kind and dutiful than he 
has been in teaching and admonishing us, we 
should have been different and inferior for 
all time and for all eternity likewise; for our 
eternity hereafter depends upon our goodness 
here. Can we not realize, then, that we our¬ 
selves have the same duty and opportunity 


By Other Men 27 

toward certain others as that providential 
group of persons had toward us? If they 
had failed us in helping us in the development 
of our mind and character and in our training 
in the faith, what and where should we now 
be? If we fail those others whom God has 
made dependent upon us, how great may be 
the loss to them? 

Survey the field of your apostolates and see 
how very fast are the opportunities which 
God has laid before your feet. A thousand 
million pagans await the message of the 
Gospel. A host of missionary priests and 
sisters and brothers have gone out from home 
and friends and in the far places of the world 
are striving to widen the frontiers of Christ. 
Their cry is ever for more material means, 
to build mission churches, support mission 
schools, train seminarists, sustain catechists, 
ransom children who may be brought up in 
the orphanages. Surely, Providence has 
allotted to each of us a definite and personal 
share in building up the kingdom of Christ 
in these desolate nations of the East. The 
small sums which you can save through acts 
of self-denial will be greatly efficacious for 
the support of the needy missions. Is it not 
true that there are many souls in the pagan 


28 


By Other Men 

East which depend on you for their salva¬ 
tion? How shall they receive the Gospel 
unless you do your part in sending support 
to the missions which seek to shepherd these 
souls for Christ? Suppose those on whom in 
past ages it depended to send forth the mis¬ 
sionaries who converted your ancestors, had 
neglected their opportunity, should you not 
now be a pagan, not a Christian? Are there 
not many remote generations who will bless 
you if you in your turn give generously the 
means to convert their forebears to the true 
faith? 

Much nearer than the white harvests of 
missions there are others, too, who wait for 
your charitable aid to bring them faith and 
holiness. The friends you have who are not 
members of the Church—to whom shall they 
look but to you, for the edification and the 
good example which will make them respect 
a faith which has so deeply salutary an influ¬ 
ence on your character and will make them 
long to be members of the Church, the bless¬ 
ings of whose influence they so clearly see in 
your own good life? The men and women 
whom you meet in daily intercourse, whence 
can they so swiftly and convincingly perceiye 
the power and sweetness of Christ’s teaching, 


By Other Men 29 

as from the fruits thereof which they notice 
in your life and character ? We all are, called 
upon to dispense unwearyingly the sweet odor 
of Christ, that chaste attraction of virtue, 
goodness, gentleness, which makes piety 
amiable, religion winning and appealing, and 
which disposes the souls of those who are 
not yet members of the true Church, to be 
willing to receive the faith and eager to em¬ 
brace it. 

Consider, again, what opportunity and 
therefore, what responsibility is yours, in the 
matter of disseminating Catholic writings. 
The written word is only speech made perma¬ 
nent. Unwearyingly and for many years a 
bit of Catholic literature, whether it be book 
or pamphlet or periodical, will continue its 
apostolate when once you have started it on 
its journeyings. From hand to hand it will 
go, dispensing the knowledge of the truth. 
But it depends upon you to give it currency. 
That act of zeal by which you will take it 
from the book-shelves or send for it through 
the mails and start it on its travels from hand 
to hand, is an essential condition, maybe, for 
the conversion of a soul. Without your aid 
at that especial juncture, the good book never 
will go forth. With your help it may reach 


30 By Other Men 

and help many souls. Suppose that those 
through whom you yourself have obtained 
the chance to read Catholic books, had 
omitted to bring them to your notice, how 
poor you would be in spiritual things. Have 
pity on these others who depend on you for 
their introduction to Catholic reading, and 
even at the cost of personal sacrifice, great 
sacrifice if necessary, give them some Cath¬ 
olic books. 

One may pursue the same reflections in 
regard to the teaching of Christian doctrine, 
the giving of instructions in the faith to 
adults as well as children. At this present 
time more than one and one-half million 
Catholic children of school age are, it is esti¬ 
mated, students of the public schools. Some 
of them are well trained at home, others are 
growing up in ignorance even of the rudi¬ 
ments of the Catholic faith. To reach these 
children and to instruct them, must be in large 
measure the task of the laity. You have your 
share in this holy work; the little ones who 
have been appointed your charges wait for 
you in the slums of the city, or in the loneli¬ 
ness of country places, or perhaps near your 
door in the very ne’ghborhood in which you 
live. As others have done for you, so must 


By Other Men 31 

you do for them, otherwise how shall they 
ever receive their heritage of the faith? 
Besides these uninstructed children, a very 
great number of grown-up folk need Catholic 
teaching; immigrants, perhaps, who were not 
well instructed before they came to this coun¬ 
try, or the children of immigrants who were 
never got hold of and taught the faith. We 
need classes in Christian doctrine for adults 
where the defects of their early training will 
be supplemented while, in other classes, they 
may be taught citizenship and English, or 
whatever branches they most need and wish 
to learn. Here, too, it may be, is your provi¬ 
dential opportunity. 

So one might continue to speak in detail 
of many an avenue of effort and apostolate. 
Let each one look about and see where God’s 
will is pointing; to what group of neglected 
or needy souls His providence directs. No 
matter how lonely our lot may be, or how 
insignificant we seem, there are some who are 
to be helped and saved by our efforts, some 
who through our ministry are to learn the 
truth of Christ and to come nearer to Him. 
Those whom we can meet and influence are 
the direct objects of our apostolate of good 
example and of instruction. To many others 


32 By Other Men 

we can bring the faith by our alms to the 
missions, the fruit of our self-denial. To 
many, many more we can bring the truth and 
grace of Christ by our fervent prayers. For 
the ministry of prayer is the most powerful 
of all apostolates, and in this way we may 
supplement our own weak efforts and win 
innumerable souls to God. Let us not be in¬ 
credulous to the heavenly vision. Let us 
seek out for Christ His sheep who are lost. 
For He wishes all men to come to salvation 
and to the knowledge of the truth, and He 
means us to give in His name to many others 
what we have so freely received. We must 
be His apostles to all to whom He sends us. 
He wills to save all men by the ministry of 
other men. 


r A VICE OF GOOD PEOPLE 


T HERE are some vices from which 
those who are trying hard to lead a 
good life are reasonably secure. Such 
vices are so obviously evil, and have in them 
so much turpitude, that anyone who is 
making a reasonable effort at goodness will 
instinctively keep aloof from them. De¬ 
liberate dishonesty, for instance, or malicious 
and cold-blooded lying, or premeditated and 
cruel revenge, are sins which sincerely earnest 
seekers after perfection are not in much dan¬ 
ger of falling into. The mere fact that one 
honestly wishes to be good, will keep one far 
away from them. Neither is there any great 
credit in avoiding these things. The average 
good disposition which, thanks be to Heaven, 
most people possess, shrinks from such ma¬ 
licious excesses. There is no great need, 
therefore, to think much of these things, nor 
to direct one’s self-examination against them. 
The spiritual dangers of good people are in 
quite other directions. 

But there are other vices and defects of such 
an insidious and dissembling character, that 
good persons are precisely the ones who are 
33 


34 A V* ce °f Good People 

likely to be taken in and fall a victim to them 
without being quite aware of what is happen¬ 
ing. These vices come often in disguise. 
They have gentlemanly features. They walk 
in good society. It was a favorite expression 
of the old writers on spiritual topics, that the 
devil is most dangerous when he comes dis¬ 
guised as an angel of light. Some vices have 
this diabolic skill of dressing themselves up 
as virtues. They insinuate themselves into 
respectable company. They assume the best 
motives and urge actions which seem alto¬ 
gether praiseworthy. Yet, for all that, they 
are vices still, and sources of evil and corrup¬ 
tion. Indeed, to good people sincerely earn¬ 
est about advancing in perfection, they are 
tenfold more dangerous because they come 
with such good recommendations and such a 
pleasing air. The coarse, rough, villainous 
vices are known at once and refused admit¬ 
tance. These other vices-in-disguise have so 
pleasant and respectable an appearance, that 
like those gentlemanly burglars who are the 
plague of social gatherings, they get in easily 
and take off precious plunder because it is 
so hard to recognize them for what they are. 

It is worth while, then, very much worth 
while, to try to detect in one’s spiritual house- 


A Vice of Good People 35 

hold the presence of these polished thieves of 
merit and of goodness. An open, evident 
fault we repent of and correct. But if we 
have in our heart these disguised and 
plausible vices, we may be even giving our¬ 
selves credit for a virtue where in reality we 
are yielding to a defect. 

With a little good will, it is not so very 
hard to detect these masquerading vices. 
The first requisite and the most important 
one, is to be quite honest with ourselves. If 
we are willing to call our motives by their 
right names and look at our actions squarely 
and impartially, it is not so very hard to see 
what is amiss. The harm comes when, as 
too often happens, a person who is substan¬ 
tially good and aware of that goodness, 
refuses to recognize and to own the defects 
which are pretty sure to exist even in a thor¬ 
oughly good and sincere character. What we 
shall say, then, is not to be taken as a discour¬ 
agement, nor even an attempt to beget doubt 
and uneasiness in the minds of those who are 
sincerely anxious to be good. It is rather an 
effort to analyze and reveal an evil inclination 
which is sometimes very strong even in the 
good, and to put thoroughly good people on 
their guard against a vice which shows a 


36 A Vice of Good People 

singular propensity to worm itself in where 
virtues greatly abound. 

Most vices may be classified under one or 
the other of the seven deadly sins. So the de¬ 
fect we speak of, comes generally under the 
head of the deadly sin of envy. Yet, under 
each of the deadly sins one finds an indefinite 
gradation of vices, shading off from the 
rough, uncouth, malicious and therefore re¬ 
pulsive open sin, to the genteel, disguised and 
insinuating vice which has been so refined 
and glossed over as almost to have the 
appearance of a virtue. Now the envy which 
is a deadly sin, is a sorrow and regret, 
a gnawing hatred and malice which the 
envious man feels and yields to because of the 
success, good qualities, esteem, love, pros¬ 
perity, fame or eminence of another. It is a 
devilish vice which seeks to injure, pull down, 
destroy that good repute, success or eminence 
of another which are the object of envy. So 
mean and contemptible is this vice, that it 
repels even the hardened in wickedness, and 
therefore it is secretive by its nature. The 
envious man seeks to ruin the object of his 
envy by roundabout and devious ways, unwill¬ 
ing to sustain the disgrace of being branded 
as an envious character. 


A Vice of Good People 37 

Described in such terms, the vice of envy 
is hideous and repulsive. How could such a 
wicked inclination to be sorry for the good 
qualities and success of others and such an 
evil wish to pull them down, find any lodg¬ 
ment in a heart and character sincerely trying 
for perfection? In such rude form, envy 
could not beguile the good. But, unhappily, 
it can masquerade, essentially unchanged, be¬ 
hind a much more bland and kind exterior. 
It is unfortunately true that a strong inclina¬ 
tion exists in human nature, to be displeased 
when anyone who is very nearly on a level 
with us and whom we consider an equal, 
excels us in any notable way. One sees this 
propensity very strong even in little children. 
It precedes the dawn of reason. Who has 
not seen little ones who were intensely jealous 
even of their brothers and sisters, and 
stormed and cried when anyone had a better 
toy than theirs, or got more caresses, or in 
any other way seemed to have preference? 
It is part of the natural selfishness of human 
nature to envy others the possession of goods 
we have not got ourselves. This natural 
tendency pushed to excess and uncontrolled 
by reason or charity, is the vice of envy. 

Now, nature though repressed and dis- 


38 A Vice of Good People 

ciplined, very seldom quite dies within us. 
Particularly is this true of the vice of envy, 
which will twist itself into a thousand forms, 
wriggle into a thousand disguises rather than 
altogether give up the citadel of the soul. In 
the very simple, as in children, and in the 
crudely wicked, it shows itself frankly in its 
own nature. But in those who are trying to 
be good, it masquerades as goodness in a way 
that would be highly amusing if it were not 
so very disastrous and so pitiful. Great 
frankness and honesty, as we have said, are 
required if we would detect the subtle work¬ 
ings of envy in our own dispositions. Such 
questions as the following may tend to bring 
the stealthy intruder to the light. When 
someone with whom you feel quite on a level 
in regard, let us say, to education, talent, 
achievement, receives unusual notice, is much 
talked of and praised, gets some notable re¬ 
ward, is your first impulse one of delight, 
pleasure in the good fortune of your acquaint¬ 
ance, honest joy in hearing him or her well 
spoken of, or do you experience a small 
interior pang, a little dip of sadness, a vague 
regret? If your heart sinks a little at an¬ 
other’s success this is certainly good reason 
to suspect that the little demon of envy is 


A Vice of Good People 39 

hiding in some cranny of your soul. Why 
else should you be depressed at the good 
fortune of another? 

Again, put this question to yourself quite 
honestly. When someone begins to mount 
the ladder of achievement do you feel your 
enthusiasm and cordial interest rise step by 
step with his progress? Is it a constantly 
increasing pleasure for you to see him going 
higher and higher? Or do you begin to 
experience an instinctive wish to belittle him, 
to point out to others certain defects in his 
character, to let those about you know that 
he is after all very human and either has 
grave defects which counterbalance his good 
qualities, or is succeeding more by good for¬ 
tune and patronage than by his own merit? 
Belittling others, suspecting them, criticizing 
their faults and minimizing their virtues, are 
very probable signs of envy. The envious 
person finds it hard to praise and acknowl¬ 
edge the good qualities of others, easy to see 
and speak of their faults; hard to give others 
full credit for their achievements, easy to 
make them out merely fortunate and favored, 
not deserving. 

Those who are more inclined to be am¬ 
bitious and aspiring themselves, are some- 


40 A Vice of Good! People 

times more prone to envy. One envies most 
readily a person very like one’s self in posi¬ 
tion, opportunities, capacity. Those who are 
far removed from us in position, locality or 
time, are not the objects of our envy. But 
people whom we know, associate with, are 
accustomed to compare ourselves to—it is 
they who suffer from our envy. Those, 
especially, who possess things that we lack 
and desire, are particularly exposed to be 
envied by us unless indeed we are on our 
guard and have exorcised and quite cast out 
the ugly devil of envy. 

We have said that the good are especially 
exposed to the more subtle forms of envy. 
One finds quite astonishing examples in the 
lives of the saints and of establishers of great 
religious enterprises, of the workings of 
secret envy. The enemies who rose up 
against them in the beginning of their career 
were very often good and well-meaning 
people who showed a dreadful blindness in 
suspecting their motives, opposing their 
plans, ridiculing their claims—true claims as 
events have proved—to divine favor and 
inspiration in their undertaking; in a word, 
who withstood these holy founders and 
pioneers in many vexatious ways. What was 


A Vice of Good People 41 

the motive of this unwise and often cruel 
opposition? One may have good reason to 
suspect in some cases that its true motive was 
a secret envy not recognized even by those 
who harbored it in their hearts. Vexed at 
the prominence given to others, annoyed by 
the greatness of their claims, these good 
people fell a victim of envy, and as they 
wished to do everything from a good motive, 
they dressed their envy up in the white robes 
of zeal. Had they been openly envious, they 
could have done no harm to the persons 
whom they withstood; but when their envy 
masqueraded as zeal, it had a dreadful power 
to block good enterprises and agonize holy 
souls. 

So, too, many good works of our day suffer 
grievously from the envy of the good. In 
how many Catholic societies and good works 
have not the leaders been beaten down and 
discouraged by the perpetual attacks of the 
envy of good people, disguised as prudence, 
conservatism, wise forethought and a dozen 
other admirable virtues. Wearing these 
masks, the envy of the good can get an aston¬ 
ishingly large following. 

Whence spring those terrific factions which 
one sometimes finds among pious people? 


42 A Vice of Good People 

What is the source of those antagonisms 
which grow up even in holy societies? Why 
are Catholic organizations sometimes so torn 
with cliques? Has not a subtle envy, dis¬ 
guised perhaps as zeal, perhaps as prudence, 
some part to play in these unseemly contro¬ 
versies ? It is natural enough that envy 
should play a great role in the world outside 
the Church. The world loves to pull down 
great reputations, check high careers and 
ruin noble fortunes. Human nature enjoys 
the sight of a man struggling to fame and 
greatness against obstacles, and cheers and 
applauds him until he sets his foot on some 
pinnacle of achievement. Then it delights 
quite as much, and perhaps a little more, in 
the sight of his humiliation and eclipse. Our 
own times are rich in examples. Democ¬ 
racies are hotbeds of envy. 

But what is natural and to be expected 
among men and women frankly devoid of 
piety, becomes intolerable in those who make 
a profession of goodness and are fighting 
under the banner of Christ. Envy is a 
grievous hurt to charity. When we envy 
others we violate that precept of divine love, 
the following of which Christ declared to be 


A Vice of Good People 43 

a special sign of His true disciples. The 
Sacred Heart of Christ detests the envious 
as He resists the proud. Besides, the envy 
of the good is more harmful because it is 
likely to be secret and disguised. It can do 
incalculable damage in the way of wrecking 
reputation, discouraging the good, blocking 
holy enterprises, poisoning minds and hearts 
with bitterness, because it masquerades as 
zeal and uses holy motives to justify its antip¬ 
athies and plant its venom. Guard against 
it most sedulously. Repress it most severely. 
In greater measure than you realize, it may 
have already crept in to poison your charity 
and embitter your heart. Beware of envy 
and you will have avoided a great pitfall 
which engulfs too many good people. For a 
secret envy in its thousand disguises is but too 
apt to be a vice of the good. 


DISCOURAGEMENT 


W HAT an extremely disagreeable and 
deadening word is this—discour¬ 
agement! And the mood which 
this dark word signifies, how sinister it is and 
terrible! How much of weariness of effort, 
frustrated expectations, the sickness of hope 
deferred, discouragement implies. To be 
discouraged—thoroughly, desperately dis¬ 
couraged—means that the light has gone 
from the sunshine, sweetness from spring, 
hope from the heart, vigor from the arm, 
skill from the hand. It is a deadly malady of 
the soul, is true discouragement, and it has 
slain more thousands than even melancholy 
has, of which it is the nurse and mother. To 
be discouraged out and out is to have lost all 
the savor of effort and the vigor of endeavor. 

Yet, even to the most sanguine and cheer¬ 
ful nature there do come hours of discourage¬ 
ment. They are the crises of the soul. 
Whatever be the cause, and it is various, a 
cloud has come between us and the sun. The 
landscape of our lives turns pale and shivers. 
Cold rain begins to fall. The skies are of 

44 


Discouragement 45 

lead, and from the earth there comes the reek 
of sodden and decaying things. Our spirit 
is struck with cold. It shivers, too, and the 
quick vital processes of life congeal in slug¬ 
gish melancholy. We look about us at fa¬ 
miliar things with a surprised dismay. What 
has come over us? Is this the homely land¬ 
scape that we knew? Everything is distorted 
and sadly altered. We see dimly through a 
cold and sullen mist, and the forms about us 
are monstrous and changed. What was 
pleasant to look at yesterday is grown to-day 
threatening and foreboding. All about us is 
sicklied over with damp exhalations. From 
everything comes a reek of gloom. 

Whatever has brought it on, this is a try¬ 
ing hour, a dangerous time that tests the very 
stuff of our character. It is easy enough to 
travel forward swiftly in fair and sunny 
weather when the skies are clear and the road 
is plain and the air is pleasant to us. But to 
plod on through this strange mud and wetness 
of dismay, through stifling and distorting 
mists, under a sullen sky and toward a goal 
we cannot see, indeed this tries the soul! 

It is well for us, therefore, to understand 
something of the nature of discouragement 
and to prepare ourselves beforehand to with- 


4 6 Discouragement 

stand or at least to struggle through its very 
trying hour. For sooner or later there comes 
to every mortal and in every good enterprise, 
this time of trial. We shall be happy if we 
acquaint ourselves with its causes beforehand 
and prepare ourselves to fight our way on¬ 
ward and persevere through the mists, from 
sunshine until sunshine. 

Discouragement has, of course, a multi¬ 
plicity of causes. Often, it is not the result of 
any one element of gloom, but a concurrence 
of trials. Crises of the nerves may bring on 
an acute attack of discouragement. Our 
moods are more influenced than we realize, 
by our physical states, and discouragement, 
like scruples, is more often a matter for the 
physician than the victims dream. That deli¬ 
cate and uncomprehended structure of our 
nervous system, played on by so many influ¬ 
ences, has more to do than we understand, 
with our states of feeling and moods of mind. 
Thus, discouragement is often the result of 
no particular external cause at all just at the 
moment, but we grow gloomy and despondent 
because our poor nerves are jangled and out 
of tune and are taking revenge on us, per¬ 
haps, for the neglect of exercise, or sleep, 
or food, or recreation, or any one of those 


Discouragement 47 

essential things which keep our nervous sys¬ 
tem in good humor. 

Acute attacks of discouragement may like¬ 
wise be brought on by receiving from another 
some slight, or rub, or injury. It is much eas¬ 
ier in general to bear the perversity of circum¬ 
stances or the stubbornness of inanimate 
things than the deliberate and intentional in¬ 
juries of our fellow mortals. There is some¬ 
thing in deliberate ill will which wounds and 
hurts us indescribably. So that a sudden of¬ 
fense, particularly when it is unexpected and 
from someone whom we esteem, may bring on 
a severe attack of discouragement. Nothing 
exteriorly has changed. The circumstances 
of our work have not altered. To-day all is 
as it was yesterday, and yesterday we were 
cheerful enough despite our trials. But 
to-day we are smarting from an unexpected 
injury, and just as a sudden chilling wind 
will sometimes break down the resistance of 
our physical system so that we fall prey to a 
disease that before we had been successfully 
resisting, so this sudden breath of another’s 
unkindness breaks down the resistance of our 
heart, and we shiver and turn pale at diffi¬ 
culties and trials which yesterday we bore 
well enough and with some cheerfulness. 


48 Discouragement 

Sometimes again, discouragement comes 
upon us as a consequence of a particularly 
trying misfortune or mishap. We are able 
to bear the usual trials of life smilingly be¬ 
cause we are used to them. But when to 
these everyday cares is suddenly added an¬ 
other difficulty, one quite out of the ordinary, 
we are aghast and feel our strength depart¬ 
ing. Weakened in courage by this too heavy 
blow, we begin to be more keenly sensible of 
all our other trials, and the gloom which this 
acute misfortune began in us spreads swiftly 
over all our outlook, as one cloud in the sum¬ 
mer sky may be often seen to grow and 
spread until it covers the entire heavens and 
earth with storm. 

At other times, of course, discouragement 
is the natural consequence of a whole heap of 
troubles piling upon us one after the other 
until we feel that our strength is insufficient 
to keep on staggering forward under such a 
pack of difficulties. This is the worst dis¬ 
couragement of all because it has its reason 
outside of us. It is quite natural to be down¬ 
hearted when we see troubles multiplying be¬ 
yond our power to bear them. There is a 
limit to all things, notably to our faculty of 
endurance, and when that limit begins to be 


Discouragement 49 

passed, no wonder we commence to grow 
downhearted. 

Discouragement in itself is no great misfor¬ 
tune, but rather an opportunity for merit so 
long as we struggle courageously against it. 
The harm comes when one yields to discour¬ 
agement, for it is a most tyrannous and cruel 
adversary if once it gets the upper hand. 
Our first attitude toward discouragement 
should therefore be always one of deter¬ 
mined resistance. We must strengthen our¬ 
selves beforehand to fight this depression 
like a plague, and never to yield to it even 
in the least degree so far as our efforts can 
prevent. This is the only reasonable atti¬ 
tude, for there is no good whatsoever in be¬ 
coming downhearted, and on the other hand 
this pestiferous enemy of the soul can do 
unspeakable harm if once it gets a grip on 
us. To fight off discouragement by all means, 
and never deliberately to yield it the space 
of an inch in our thoughts, should be our 
first and habitual resolve in this grave matter. 

But what will help us to elude and stifle 
this enemy? First, of course, the help of 
God, which is to be got by prayer. We 
should pray earnestly for God’s aid to keep 
us from becoming discouraged; pray for 


50 Discouragement 

courage and resistance to despondency; beg 
for grace to see all things as God sees them 
and to carry on through the dark hours which 
precede our coming forth again into the sun¬ 
shine. Thus by prayer we can store up 
strength beforehand to resist this great evil. 
If we have God’s help, got by prayer, we 
need never fear the onslaught of discour¬ 
agement. 

It helps again to philosophize, as we have 
been doing, about the causes of our discour¬ 
agement. When we find the skies darkening 
and the wind growing chill, mists rising about 
us and our way becoming dim and fore¬ 
boding, it helps to pause a bit and consider 
from what quarter this dark storm blows. If 
we can determine the cause of our discourage¬ 
ment, perhaps we may be able to remove it. 
In any event, it gives us more assurance and 
patience to realize that our present state of 
gloom has a definite cause and one which is 
but passing. 

Sometimes the cause is quite readily re¬ 
moved. If our nerves are the culprits, rest, 
exercise in the fresh and vigorous open air, 
sleep, food, will help elate us. Many a man 
struck with a sudden discouragement has 
wisely taken the open road and walked for 


Discouragement 51 

an afternoon, leaving his downheartedness 
somewhere along the road, and coming home 
renewed in courage and with a brighter out¬ 
look. We must give our poor bodies their 
chance to recuperate or they will painfully 
weigh upon the spirit. When the flesh is 
either unduly pampered or unduly tried, it 
will always take its revenges. 

If it is some injury from another that 
makes us grow discouraged, a little thought 
will help us pass safely through the trial. If 
our adversary intended to injure us, we only 
abet and fulfill his malicious purpose by let¬ 
ting ourselves become downhearted. If the 
injury was unintentional, then we do our¬ 
selves a still more foolish harm in taking it 
so to heart. In either case, the wise course 
is to bow to God’s will, offer up to Him the 
pain we suffer, and then turn our mind to 
more cheerful things, for what good is there 
to be gained in dwelling on an injury? 

The discouragement which takes hold of 
us when some serious misfortune comes, is 
more difficult to get rid of or even to endure. 
Here patience and resignation with cheerful¬ 
ness must be our endeavor. It will help us 
to dwell on the all-wisdom and all-mercy of 
God’s providence. He, who watches the 


52 Discouragement 

sparrows when they fall, has not from all 
eternity suffered the least detail of our lives 
and fortunes to escape Him. Whatever 
comes to pass He has weighed and con¬ 
sidered in its last consequence and has al¬ 
lowed it to be so for His own glory and our 
good. Whatever happens, therefore, can 
never be a just reason for discouragement, 
for, be they good or ill, all things work to¬ 
gether unto good to them that love God. 

The same holy reflection will encourage us 
and strengthen us against despondency when 
a whole host of troubles all together come 
toppling down upon us. In such hard passes 
there is some credit in keeping up our cour¬ 
age, and God watches us to see how we shall 
act under these multiplied difficulties. It is 
to test our endurance and our faith that He 
has allowed so many trials to come upon us 
all at once. His Divine Majesty desires 
heroes for His service, and the harder the 
battle has become, the more excellent will be 
the crown of victory. If all these trials had 
come together by chance and without calcula¬ 
tion, that might be indeed a deadening mis¬ 
fortune. But since each one has been fore¬ 
seen by God, and they have all been suffered 
to come together to give us this opportunity 


Discouragement 53 

for merit, why should we complain or repine ? 
Faith must come to our help and light up 
for us the path which would otherwise be so 
desperately gloomy. But if we have strong 
enough faith to see in all things the prov¬ 
idence of God, we may indeed be sorely tried 
and have to struggle desperately to fulfill 
what God expects of us, but we shall never be 
discouraged. For who can give way to dis¬ 
couragement who knows that he is being 
watched by All-Wisdom and helped by All- 
Goodness and All-Power? 

With prayer, then, and prudence, armored 
in faith and forearmed with philosophy and 
resolution, let us resist discouragement to the 
death. It is the ally of the devil and the 
enemy of good works. A wise man may 
grow weary, may long for his release, may be 
bewildered and perplexed by many troubles, 
may feel the strength of his soul tried to 
the uttermost, and groan to God for deliver¬ 
ance. If he were left to fight alone, he would 
indeed have reason to despair. But with 
God fighting on his side he never finds good 
reason to be downhearted. If he has the 
wisdom from on high and has strengthened 
his soul by prayer, he will never surrender 
to downheartedness. Let us strive and pray 


54 Discouragement 

to keep out of the clutches of discourage¬ 
ment. For this black plague has slain its 
tens of thousands and it is one of the dead¬ 
liest sicknesses of the soul. 


OUR STRONGER WEAKNESSES 



HERE is a foreign proverb which 


gives one rather a vivid glimpse into 


human nature. When one is put out 
with another because of some annoying cor¬ 
ner in his character, one will sometimes say, 
half in vexation and half in excuse, “Ah, well, 
the poor man has, after all, the defects which 
go with his good qualities.” The phrase 
does not lend itself very readily to translation 
into English, but its meaning is quite clear— 
that when a person has a good quality to a 
strong degree, the very intensity of that good 
quality is like to bring with it some excess and 
imperfection. Any extreme is apt to be vex¬ 
ing where there is question of natural qual¬ 
ities of character. Extreme weaknesses lead 
to noticeable defects. But extreme strength 
is likely in the same measure to lead to 
notable excesses, and both defects and ex¬ 
cesses tend to be evil. 

One will perceive quite clearly the meaning 
of this shrewd proverb and its bearing on 
everyday life, if one takes the trouble to seek 
for examples. Thus, for instance, you may 
have a very strong will, and this in itself is 


55 


56 Our Stronger fVeaknesses 

a good. Yet with strength of will there often 
goes an inflexibility, a rigidity, a stubborn¬ 
ness and tenacity of purpose which override 
even lawful opposition and make the strong- 
willed person tyrannical, contentious and 
overbearing. Such a one has the defects of 
his good qualities. To be strong-willed is 
good, to go to an excess in being strong- 
willed is an evil. Again one may be meek, 
gentle, considerate, possessed to a high de¬ 
gree of the virtue of amiability. Yet, with 
this amiableness there very often goes an 
excess of complaisance. The gentle, ami¬ 
able person may easily go too far in yield¬ 
ing and being gentle and may neglect to 
resist evil at the proper time or to offer 
due opposition when it is a duty to with¬ 
stand some wrong. Here again, it is easy to 
see that such a one has the defects which are 
apt to go with this good quality of gentleness. 

So, one may run a whole gamut of human 
qualities. A very cautious man who is pos¬ 
sessed to a great degree of the virtue of 
prudence and wishes to be extremely safe in 
all he does, may easily grow so used to de¬ 
liberating about everything, so anxious to 
weigh every aspect of the situation and look 
at a subject from every possible angle, that 


Our Stronger Weaknesses 57 

through an excessive caution he becomes a 
prey to habitual indecision and cannot make 
up his mind about anything. The native 
vigor of his resolution is so sickbed over with 
the pale cast of thought, as quite to lose the 
name of action. Such a person again has 
clearly fallen victim to the defect which goes 
with his good quality of caution. 

The self-controlled and self-contained per¬ 
son who keeps strict watch over his affections 
may, if he falls into an excess of self¬ 
suppression, become cold and unemotional to 
a degree which will repel and freeze those 
with whom he is brought in contact. The one 
who is by nature expansive and emotional, 
the warm-hearted and eager soul, may fall 
into the opposite excess and become a sorry 
victim to his feelings and affections, to his 
own and to others’ ruin. 

To say all this is, of course, only to repeat 
in other words the ancient observation that 
virtue lies in the golden mean and that any 
excess is a fault, even though it be an excess 
that leans too far on the right side. Yet, it 
is very instructive to us to consider ourselves 
and others in the light of the principle thus 
phrased by the foreign proverb. To observe 
that most people are inclined to have the 


58 Our Stronger Weaknesses 

defects which go with their good qualities, 
the shadows which usually accompany the 
lights of their character, will tend to help us 
to correct our own faults more surely and as 
well to bear more patiently with the faults 
of other people. Deeper knowledge and a 
better understanding of our own nature is 
one of the most mighty aids to self- 
improvement. On the other hand, a greater 
sympathy and wider comprehension of others 
is one of the surest ways to charity. Too 
often we grow discouraged with ourselves 
or take the wrong means to correct our 
faults, for want of a knowledge of our own 
hearts. A great many of our hard judgments 
against others come from the circumstance 
that we do not understand them and cannot 
sympathize with the difficulties they labor 
under. 

Turning our eyes first on ourselves, we 
shall see quite easily in the light of this 
proverb that among the defects we must be 
on our guard against are those which come 
from an abuse of or an excess of our very 
good qualities and virtues. If we perceive 
that we have a very strong, unyielding char¬ 
acter, we must beware of dealing harshly 


Our Stronger Weaknesses 59 

with others and overriding them by the mere 
strength of our imperious will. If we per¬ 
ceive ourselves to be yielding and considerate 
by nature, then we should watch carefully 
so that we may not get into the way of 
surrendering to others even in matters where 
conscience and duty call on us to be firm. So, 
too, if we are very affectionate, we have to 
beware of softness and emotionalism. If 
we are self-disciplined and self-contained 
by nature, we must beware of freezing 
others by our lack of kindness. One may go 
on to apply this same reflection to any good 
quality of which one finds oneself possessed. 

There are few virtues which cannot be 
pushed to excess. The love of God, it is 
true, one can never have too much of, but it 
is quite easy to go too far even in one’s ex¬ 
terior manifestations of piety. To go to 
church often and to be very fond of prayer, 
is assuredly a virtue. Yet, one may come to 
have the defects which go with this good 
quality if one neglects one’s other duties and 
shirks the work that is rightly asked of one, 
for the sake of going more often to church 
to pray. To consider what are the defects 
that go with our good qualities, and to ex- 


60 Our Stronger Weaknesses 

amine how far we have perhaps uncon¬ 
sciously fallen a victim to them, is therefore 
a great help to self-correction. 

At the same time, there is consolation in 
this thought that one often has also the good 
qualities of one’s defects. For where a 
shadow is, there is light also; and down¬ 
hearted people who find it hard to believe any 
good of themselves, may perhaps be per¬ 
suaded that they have, after all, some virtues, 
by considering that even their defects may 
point to the possession of a counterbalancing 
good quality. Thus, if one has found one¬ 
self too harsh and determined in dealing with 
others, it is quite likely that one also pos¬ 
sesses a fine quality of persistence and 
strength of purpose. If one is inclined to be 
extremely yielding, at least the chances are, 
one gives very little offense and has to one’s 
credit many acts of considerateness and kind¬ 
ness. Self-contained and cold characters have 
frequently to reproach themselves that they 
do not win and attract others to goodness, 
but on the other side, they escape many faults 
and even sins which are likely to go with a 
too demonstrative and affectionate disposi¬ 
tion. Those who are too affectionate by na¬ 
ture, possess, on the other hand, a warm and 


Our Stronger Weaknesses 61 

kind heart which may be the source of many 
good acts and of much merit. 

So there are compensations even for our 
defects of character. But if we are wise, we 
shall use the self-knowledge which these 
reflections give, to set about correcting the 
excesses to which we find our stronger 
qualities incline us. The thought that, after 
all, many of the defects we observe in our¬ 
selves are only the result of a leaning too far 
in the right direction, should give us courage 
strongly to insist with ourselves on keeping 
the balance and holding ourselves firm in the 
golden mean. The correction of many of 
our faults does not require of us entirely to 
change our inborn nature. All that is needed 
is to retrench the excess to which our strong 
qualities incline us and to exercise well, with¬ 
in the bounds of common sense and duty, the 
dispositions which God has given. A very 
great deal depends on the courage and cheer¬ 
fulness with which we go about correcting 
our defects. If we begin by looking on our¬ 
selves as quite hopeless monsters, we shall 
never have the heart sincerely to reform what 
is wrong in us. But if we regard ourselves 
as possessing certain good qualities, the gift 
of God, which our inordinateness and im- 


62 Our Stronger JVeaknesses 

prudence have let go out of bounds and hurry 
us into faults and excesses, the courage we 
feel in the possession of the good qualities, 
may cheer us on to correct with right good 
will the defects which go along with them. 

In a similar way, the realization that even 
good qualities have their accompanying de¬ 
fects, will help us quite considerably to prac¬ 
tice charity and forbearance toward the 
faults of our neighbor, which we incline to 
see so clearly and which are so hard for us 
to bear. If we look on these faults as in 
great measure only a leaning too far in the 
right direction, the shadows that go with 
lightsome virtues, the defects which naturally 
accompany sterling good qualities in the same 
disposition, we shall we able to condone these 
faults of others much more easily. Someone 
whom we know, may be inclined to domineer 
and be stubborn, but with this very defect 
goes a fine gift of perseverance in effort and 
strength of will. One can forgive the first 
for the sake of the second. Another one of 
our acquaintances may annoy us sometimes 
by being too yielding and compliant, but let 
us look at the accompanying good qualities 
in him and be glad for his gentleness and 


Our Stronger Weaknesses 63 

consideration. So, for almost every defect 
we perceive in others, we may console our¬ 
selves by the thought that there is a corre¬ 
sponding good quality to be found which 
more than counterbalances the failing. Per¬ 
haps if we had our way and succeeded in 
doing away altogether with the defect which 
plagues us, we should discover to our sorrow 
that we had also rooted out from the charac¬ 
ter of our friend some fine and noble quality, 
over the loss of which we should feel far 
more regret than we now feel chagrin over 
the defect w’e now perceive in him. 

True, of course, the ideal would be to 
keep all virtues and be rid of all excesses. 
But this desirable thing is accomplished with 
difficulty in our poor fallen nature. At least 
where others are concerned, we should never 
cease seeking to see the compensating virtues 
in them. For our own self, we should never 
give over trying to achieve the golden mean 
and correct our defects, without at the same 
time losing any of the virtues we now possess. 
In this way we may take both warning and 
encouragement from the truth, that the 
excesses of one’s good qualities turn easily 
into defects. We shall thus do well to make 


64 Our Stronger Weaknesses 

use of such glimpses into human nature, both 
for our own improvement and as a means 
of widening our sympathy and charity to¬ 
ward others. 

Some most interesting and delightful 
revelations of the noble possibilities of our 
human nature in this regard, are to be found 
in the histories of the saints. These great 
servants of God were vigilant over every 
motion of their hearts, and steadfastly dis¬ 
ciplined themselves so that all their interior 
might be brought into perfect conformity 
with God’s holy will. So admirably did they 
succeed, that some of them have become 
eminent to a great degree for the very virtues 
which at first they found lacking in their 
hearts. Thus, St. Francis de Sales, who was 
by nature, so he tells us himself, a headstrong 
and harsh character, became the very im¬ 
personation of gentleness and kindness. St. 
Ignatius, who was a fiery and impetuous 
soldier, disciplined his heart until he became 
a model of calmness and self-control. 

So, one might go through the whole calen¬ 
dar of the saints and see how wonderfully 
they have developed in their character those 
very virtues in which at first they found 
themselves lacking. In other words, they 


Our Stronger Weaknesses 65 

have achieved that wonderful and delicate 
balance of virtue which consists in so culti¬ 
vating the good qualities of one’s character 
as to develop it harmoniously and bring all 
one’s faculties and powers into complete 
subjection to the law of God. Needless to 
say, these good qualities of the saints which 
they had cultivated by the grace of God and 
countless efforts of self-discipline, were pre¬ 
served, by unremitting vigilance, from the 
defects which might have been found in 
association with the corresponding natural 
virtues. When one has cultivated kindness 
and tenderness of heart for the love of God, 
that fine and supernatural virtue brings with 
it no defect. So, too, when one has taught 
one’s heart to be strong and firm for God’s 
love, there is little danger that this firmness 
will degenerate into rigidity, or become 
tyrannous and domineering. 

Indeed, the example of the saints points 
out to us how we may best avoid the defects 
which even our good qualities might other¬ 
wise bring with them. It is by supernatural 
virtue, by informing and enlivening all our 
acts and thoughts and words with the love 
of God and zeal for His service, that we may 
avoid falling into excesses through an over- 


66 Our Stronger Weaknesses 

insistence on this or the other quality which 
we possess. By self-examination and prayer, 
we may come to know and avoid the dangers 
which even our good qualities may otherwise 
bring us. By the grace of God and a good 
intention, we may so purify our hearts and 
souls that we shall escape the defects of our 
good qualities, while strengthening and 
purifying those good qualities themselves. 


MIXED MOTIVES 



IHE more a person increases in self* 


knowledge and self-analysis—a per- 


son, I mean, who is trying to be good 
—the more he is likely to be troubled by a 
strange and sorrowful characteristic of our 
human nature. The more he grows accurate 
in analyzing the motives which are the main¬ 
springs of his actions, the more he comes to 
realize that they are very mixed indeed! It 
is to many souls a baffling and discouraging 
discovery—that one so seldom does anything 
purely from a right and simple intention, but 
that a crowd of lesser motives so often slip 
in unawares and detract from the perfection 
of our actions. 

To those who give no heed to their interior 
life, and live on from hand to mouth, so to 
say, quite careless about anything except the 
immediate and exterior consequences of 
their actions, the mixed character of their 
motives gives little occasion for thought 
or concern. Indeed, sad to say, some such 
persons seem scarcely to have any admixture 
of the supernatural in their lives—their 
motives are quite frankly of the world and 


68 


Mixed Motives 


the flesh. But the sincerely pious, who wish 
earnestly to do all things for the love of God, 
are often deeply puzzled about the fact that 
their own interior intentions, the mainsprings 
of their outward actions, are so often mixed 
with good and indifferent or even with selfish 
and not very worthy inclinations. 

There are certain natural propensities in us 
which come into action spontaneously and 
without our wishing it when the occasion is 
presented to them. They are implanted in us 
as safeguards and incentives for the proper 
care of ourselves and of our own interests-— 
part of that equipment of natural instincts 
given us to aid in self-preservation and self- 
care and self-betterment. These inclinations 
are therefore harmless and good in them¬ 
selves. Unhappily, however, our nature is no 
longer possessed of that original integrity 
which it had in our first parents before the 
fall, and so, these instincts of self-protection 
and self-improvement, good in themselves, 
incline to become inordinate, excessive and a 
cause of evil in us. 

For instance, a well-ordered self-love is a 
benefit, a necessity, and the motive of good 
actions. We must love ourselves and cherish 
ourselves for the love of God and in His 


Mixed Motives 


69 

service, or else we shall break His law. Our 
first duty is to save our own soul, and this 
duty to ourselves requires a due degree of 
right self-love that will make us constantly 
solicitous to avoid evil and do good, to secure 
for ourselves the needful advantages and 
helps toward salvation and perfection, and 
to keep our bodies and minds in such a state 
that they shall be best able to serve God and 
work out our salvation. 

It is when this natural and right inclina¬ 
tion in us to look out for ourselves and to 
fake care of and provide for ourselves be¬ 
comes inordinate that it grows evil. We so 
easily slip past the boundaries of right self- 
love, and begin to love ourselves too much 
and in a way not holy. We wish for our¬ 
selves things that are not good for us, wish 
over-much for things to which we have a 
right but which we now desire in themselves 
and not for the love and service of God. 
Thus, the motive of caring and providing for 
ourselves, good in itself and necessary for us, 
becomes, through this disorderly excess, a 
cause of danger and a source of the ugly vice 
of selfishness. 

So, too, nature itself has implanted in us a 
desire for happiness. We crave to be happy 


Mint'd Motives 


70 

by a natural instinct altogether beyond our 
power to banish or evade. The wish to be 
happy is innate in us and part of our being. 
It is a motive that mingles itself with all we 
will or do, and until the end of our lives, and 
indeed throughout eternity, we shall always 
crave to be happy. But the weakness of our 
fallen nature distorts this natural craving 
also into an excessive impatience to seize 
instantly upon present good things, to a wish 
to be happy in forbidden ways and to secure 
happiness by means that are inordinate and 
vain. Instead of fixing our present happiness 
in doing the will of God, and of looking for¬ 
ward to His heavenly rewards for full and 
perfect happiness hereafter, we are forever 
inclined to clutch at the poor gratifications of 
the present and to imperil or ruin our true 
felicity which is to come in God’s good time, 
by trading it off for the sham happiness 
offered us by perishable and forbidden things. 

One might go on and point out, taking up, 
one after another, the inborn inclinations of 
our human nature, how apt we all are to 
become inordinate, to run to excesses, to 
betray ourselves into sin, or at least into 
imperfections. Many tendencies in us are, 
moreover, spontaneous and instinctive. They 


Mixed Motives 


7 i 

anticipate the action of our wilL So soon as 
the occasion arises for looking out for our 
own interests, for getting some pleasure for 
which we have a mind, for acquiring honor, 
goods, influence, the natural instinct in us 
comes into play and our will is . solicited to 
consent to the impulse which nature gives it 
to look out for self, to get w T hat nature 
craves, to gratify our wish to be presently 
happy. 

If we understand this truth, and realize 
how natural it is for us to have these tend¬ 
encies and cravings, how constantly they 
besiege our will, and how swiftly they come 
into play the moment their object is presented 
to our attention, it will not be in the least 
surprising to us that motives derived from 
these ill-ordered passions, impulses and de¬ 
sires of our nature, tend constantly to creep 
into our actions, however good and holy. 
Our conscious and deliberate self may plan 
most carefully and determine from the lofti¬ 
est motives to accomplish the most worthy 
deeds. But nature, which never sleeps and 
whose processes go on without our conscious 
or deliberate assent, keeps urging our will 
with direct and insistent power to mingle 
lower motives with the motives which we 


Mixed Motives 


7 2 

have chosen of set purpose, and succeeds in 
making us perform from several intents what 
we planned to do from a single and lofty one. 

It is disconcerting and discouraging to 
discover the intrusion of these natural and 
sometimes downright selfish motives into acts 
which we had flattered ourselves were alto¬ 
gether unselfish and holy. It humbles us 
exceedingly to discern, in some flash of self- 
knowledge, that the desire of esteem, let us 
say, or the wish for distinction, or the 
craving for some other personal and private 
good, has crept into our holiest actions. To 
generous natures in particular, who desire 
very much to serve God out of love and per* 
fectly, it is disheartening to find that, try as 
they will, they cannot keep personal and 
selfish motives from slipping into their ac¬ 
tions and spoiling the perfect holocaust. 

Indeed, the discovery that so many of our 
good works are performed from mixed mo¬ 
tives, and that nature insists on having her 
part, even in acts which seem at first sight to 
be done from the inspiration of grace alone 
and from the most right and pure of motives, 
serves too often positively to discourage 
some aspirants after perfection, and tempts 
them to give up the endeavor to purify their 


Mixed Motives 


73 

motives and to increase in the pure love of 
God. They are so shocked to see the extent 
to which selfishness insinuates itself into their 
actions, that they conclude it is no use trying 
to get rid of this slippery monster, and there¬ 
fore they unwisely resign themselves to never 
becoming much better than they are. They 
wrongly judge that good works done from 
such mixed motives as they perceive their 
own to be, can never be pleasing in the sight 
of a God of infinite sanctity. This tempta¬ 
tion to discouragement plays into the hands 
of the devil. Any impulse to give up trying 
to be better, must indeed be delightful to 
that ancient enemy of mankind. So long as 
one keeps on trying, no matter how slight the 
progress and how scant the success, to love 
God more, to perform one’s actions more for 
His honor and service, to replace with the 
motive of His love our merely natural in¬ 
clinations and desires, so long is one on the 
road to perfection. The great calamity 
would be to give up trying. If the realization 
of the mixed motives with which we perform 
our good deeds scares us from keeping up 
our efforts to purifv our intentions and make 
our motives right, then, indeed truly, we have 
suffered dreadful harm. 


Mixed Motives 


74 

But in itself this fact, that most of our 
motives are admixtures of grace and nature, 
that selfishness and self-seeking are so apt 
to enter into even our holiest actions, is no 
unusual nor alarming symptom in the spir¬ 
itual life. Still less is it a reason for discour¬ 
agement or dismay. Even the holiest per¬ 
sons at all times of the Church have suffered 
from and complained of the same trying 
weakness. If the very saints of God, in the 
midst of their most glorious labors for souls, 
had often to reproach themselves with self- 
love and self-seeking, they in whose heroic 
actions we lesser mortals look in vain for 
anything inordinate or low, is it any wonder 
that we, the small fry of Peter’s net, are little 
and mean in our greatest deeds? More 
humility and self-knowledge, letting light on 
our pitiful weakness, would make us wonder, 
not that our best actions proceed from mo¬ 
tives filled with imperfection, but that there 
is in them any admixture of real heavenly 
love at all. 

We should, then, rather rejoice that our 
motives are mixed with some supernatural 
intentions, than despair because they have 
earthly dross with the heavenly gold. Being 
what we are, it would be a wonder indeed if 


Mixed Motives 75 

some selfish excesses did not accompany our 
holiest works. We must be satisfied with 
ourselves as we are, using the chances that we 
have for goodness, with gratitude and lowli¬ 
ness of heart. If God had wished, He might 
have made us angels. But it is evidently His 
good pleasure to see what we shall do for 
Him as the very weak and pitiful creatures, 
half clay and half spirit, which He has 
pleased to fashion. 

Besides, the admixture of selfish and 
natural motives which we detect in our ac¬ 
tions, does not prevent their being both good 
and meritorious before God. It is true that 
our actions are of greater merit in proportion 
as they are done more and more purely for 
the honor and love of God. This should 
be an incentive for us constantly to purify 
our affections and to direct our intention 
straight toward our Lord. But on the other 
hand, there is no doubt that the presence of 
merely natural motives does not prevent an 
act from being meritorious in proportion as 
it is done for the honor and love of God and 
in His service. 

We should feel encouraged to endeavor 
to the utmost to make our motives pure and 
our intentions right when we perform our 


Mixed Motives 


76 

daily tasks in God’s sweet service. The more 
we purify our motives, the greater is our 
merit here and our glory hereafter. Yet, we 
should at the same time never grow discour¬ 
aged over the presence of chaff in our wheat, 
or dross in the gold we offer to God, of an 
admixture of intentions and desires which are 
merely natural and human, among the good 
and holy purposes which wt propose to our¬ 
selves in our actions and endeavors. For it 
is, after all, only human for us to be now 
fervent, now cold, now all on fire with zeal, 
in the next moment inclined to selfishness and 
self-seeking. If our merciful God did not 
make allowance for our human nature, and 
deign to receive gifts not all pure or without 
alloy, we should indeed be in pitiful case, 
for all that we can give Him is mixed with 
human dross. But He knows that we are clay, 
and does not refuse the little we can offer 
Him. Our poor, mixed motives in His 
service should indeed be a reason for us of 
constant self-abasement in His sight. They 
must never for an instant be a source of 
discouragement 


ON BEING INDIVIDUAL 

E are a dreadfully standardized and 
conventionalized folk, we ultra- 



civilized peoples of the twentieth 
century. Fashions and customs have reduced 
us to a sad state of sameness. It would be a 
mercy if some convulsion of fashions, some 
cataclysm of conventionalities, would stir us 
all up and make us a bit less like one another. 
What is to blame for all this terrible similar¬ 
ity? How few of us rightly dare to be in¬ 
dividual! We are as like one another in 
thoughts as we are in dress, and are apt to 
get our notions from the daily papers and 
the boiler-plate magazines as we do our 
styles of clothing from the tyrannous fashion- 
makers. 

An observant wag has made great sport 
of the slavery of men to styles. Everyone 
must wear a collar and necktie, and a man 
would almost as soon forget his shoes as 
leave his house in the morning without those 
trite but indispensable articles. There is 
really no reason in the world why every 
civilized male should bind in his neck with a 
strip of starched linen, but custom will have 


77 


78 On Being Individual 

it so, just as custom makes the natives of 
Tahiti tattoo their skin. This is all very 
funny, to be sure, but it is even more ludicrous 
to see men wearing opinions and ideas as 
slavishly as they do their collars. They get 
the one from the haberdasher and the other 
from cheap periodicals, but both are fur¬ 
nished them ready-made, and they must be 
worn so long as they stay in style. 

What has put this tyrannous sway of 
conventionalism upon us? We need to take 
a hard look at ourselves and to see how unin¬ 
dividual and standardized we have become. 
Bless us! We are actually afraid to be 
individual, and we sink out of sight our per¬ 
sonal and harmless idiosyncrasies, those indi¬ 
vidual traits which would make us interesting, 
from a positive fear of being in any way out 
of the ordinary. Eccentricity is a bogy to 
us. We dread to be singular or to be thought 
so, as though it were a sin. We pare down 
our tastes and stifle our preferences and make 
ourselves as humdrum as possible, so as not 
to be thought out of the ordinary. 

Of course, there is a species of singularity 
which is objectionable and to be avoided. 
When one is out of order as well as out of 
the ordinary, that individuality is offensive. 


On Being Individual 79 

There is only too much of this disorderly 
individualism nowadays, and one fears that 
it is in part a reaction from the dreadfully 
standardized monotony of being so very 
much like everybody else. 

But the sort of individuality and unusual¬ 
ness which we commend and desire is not 
this disorderly type. We plead for every¬ 
one’s being himself, his better self, but still 
his true and very self. We wish that each 
person could develop harmoniously those in¬ 
dividual traits and personal goodnesses with 
which an all-wise Providence has endowed 
him, and would not so dully sink his pleasant 
little points of difference from other people 
into a drab and uniform hue of utter conven¬ 
tionality. 

For is it not true that we are painfully like 
one another? As like as leaves on a tree, as 
peas in a pod. How unusual it is to meet 
anyone who is strikingly individual. In 
thoughts, in manners, in dress, in speech we 
are wearyingly similar. The thing is increas¬ 
ing. What with the ease of communication, 
the awful prevalence of standardized peri¬ 
odicals and amusements, the world-wide 
oligarchy of fashion-makers, the monotony 
of education, people are being pressed and 


8 o On Being Individual 

squeezed into the same molds of thought, 
of feeling, of manners, of tastes, to a degree 
that is surprising and pathetic. There is a 
frantic need for more individuality. What 
is to blame for all this conventionalism? 

To begin with, there are the systems of 
education. Was human nature ever intended 
to be set in rows on benches when very young 
and impressionable, and doctored with the 
same doses of predigested and carefully 
standardized thoughts? Take twenty lads 
or lasses, in their homes in the care-free days 
before they are sent to school. One dis¬ 
covers delightful little traits of budding in¬ 
dividualities that burgeon pleasantly in their 
young natures. One is exceedingly merry, 
the very embodiment of roly-poly good 
humor. With proper encouragement he 
might develop into that rare, dear creature, 
a true humorist. Another is quite takingly 
pensive and inclines to introspection. With 
due surroundings he might write elegiacs in 
his maturer years. So here and there 
throughout all the twenty, one sees the quick- 
enings of individual traits. But now put 
them in school. Line them up on benches. 
Feed them with a strictly standardized men¬ 
tal pabulum, without caring for or attending 


On Being Individual 81 

to their dewy differences. Give them a cer¬ 
tain number of tasks suited to the average 
child (which never did exist). No wonder 
they grow monotonously similar. They can¬ 
not escape from the standardizing pressure 
of a cut and dried system of education. 

Since this is a strictly philosophic treatise, 
we shall go one step farther backward to¬ 
ward the reasons of things, and discover that 
in the system of fixed examinations there may 
be found a still more radical cause of our 
sameness, one with the other. Into the maw 
of this Moloch of examinations, countless 
children are fed every year. Every study 
must afford appropriate and definite matter 
for the periodical examinations and there¬ 
fore it is cut and dried into little morsels and 
fed the pupils with precision. No wonder 
that students, whose chief aim in life is the 
passing of examinations, should tend to be¬ 
come in time monotonously similar. They all 
know the same thing. They all have to say 
the same thing. No wonder, if some special 
provision be not made for cultivating their 
individual traits, that they grow as alike as 
so many questions and answers. 

Many characters are not strong enough 
ever to shake off this repressive influence of 


82 On Being Individual 

the examination system, which can so effec¬ 
tively clip off the corners of individual tastes 
and preferences. With such a start in life, 
encouraged to conform to the standard, dis¬ 
couraged from being original, it is hard for 
one to break away in after days from the 
habit of dull conformity. Since one has not 
been trained to develop one’s pleasing and 
laudable traits of personality, one is apt if 
one grows individual at all, to be so in un¬ 
pleasant ways and so to become obnoxiously 
singular without being really original and 
individual. 

For, let us repeat, we have nothing to say 
in praise of mere singularity. What we 
plead for is the cultivation of the pleasant 
differences which exist in every character. 
We have certain talents. Let us use them, 
whether others have such talents or no. We 
like certain things; let us dwell on and clarify 
our likings provided they be right, whether 
others have similar likings or no. Granted 
that our individual traits are laudable and 
correct, let us develop and strengthen them. 
To take one’s tastes from the crowd, one’s 
thoughts from the papers, one’s amusements 
from cheap public show places, is to lose the 
fine edge of one’s proper originality. 


On Being Individual 83 

Another source of dreadful sameness 
among civilized people, is the standardiza¬ 
tion of all creature comforts and wares of 
personal use, which the huge commercialized 
machinery of modern society has brought 
about. In the old days each family was its 
own manufactory; the mother of the house¬ 
hold wove and spun and cut and sewed for 
her flock, and so everyone’s clothing was just 
a bit different. The man of the house saw r ed 
and planed and hammered and made the 
furnishing of the home. There were home 
arts and home crafts; and if those households 
were cruder than ours, they were at least 
endlessly more individual. Now, from Kan¬ 
sas to Kamchatka, and from Korea to 
Kalamazoo, all people of the white race are 
oppressed with the same styles in dress, in 
furniture, in food, because these things are 
manufactured in huge quantities by machin¬ 
ery, and because mighty “sales forces” rush 
out from the great centers and pounce upon 
the helpless and unresisting retailer, who, 
in his turn, hands on the produce to the 
consumer. 

There was a time when every shire had its 
own individualities. In those days customs 
savored of the soil. Even simple men and 




84 On Being Individual 

poor kept their characteristics, their tastes 
and ways of speech. But travel and inter¬ 
communication have helped the crushing 
forces of convention to suppress this in¬ 
dividuality. Now, a town must carefully 
cherish its old landmarks to lure the tourist 
thither. As for the people, they tend to be¬ 
come pretty much the same everywhere. 

In our own country it is quite appalling 
how like we are to one another. One has a 
refreshing sense of surprise when one comes 
upon any real local color. Inside and out 
the folk are standardized. What fashions 
and styles of dress and furniture and food 
and lodging do for their bodies, the current 
periodicals and popular amusements do for 
their minds. Great powerful magazines and 
papers, keeping their presses whirling night 
and day, pour out on the defenseless populace 
such a flood of print as quite submerges the 
landmarks of literature for them. At a given 
time of the week, travel where you may, on 
street car or train, by the swift express or 
the jogging local, you shall see in men’s and 
women’s hands the self-same magazines. 
They do their part to deaden individual 
tastes and preferences. Where everyone 
reads the same thing, and that not of the 


On Being Individual 85 

best, everyone is shoved toward a more or 
less uniform mediocrity. Commercialized 
amusements tend, one need scarcely say, in 
the same direction. 

Those who will not think deeply, may sus¬ 
pect these remarks of, being flippant and 
trivial, but there is more significance in them 
than may show on the surface. Let every 
man develop the best that is in him on his 
own lines and according to his own person¬ 
ality, and we shall be a wiser, happier, and 
certainly more interesting people. Not in 
vain has the Giver of good gifts bestowed on 
each of us quite definite talents, tastes and 
capacities. It is one of our life’s businesses 
to develop these personal gifts in a lovely 
and harmonious way. We lose them or at 
least the flower of them, when we descend to 
the dull level of a commonplace conventional¬ 
ism. We owe it to ourselves to cultivate our 
goodly differences betimes and to be wisely 
and prudently but preciously individual. 


ON GOING TOO FAR 


T HERE was once a very fervent novice 
who had gone through great trials and 
overcome many difficulties to win his 
way to the novitiate, where he was to prove 
his calling to be a priest and religious, conse¬ 
crated body and soul to the service of God. 
One vividly remembers the fervor and exact¬ 
ness with which he entered into the pious 
exercises of the noviceship. He had suffered 
much, from the opposition of his father and 
his friends, before he succeeded in leaving 
home, had made a long difficult journey, 
without sufficient funds, to arrive at this holy 
place, and so he appreciated to the full every 
spiritual advantage which it offered him. 
Not a particle of the good gift should over¬ 
pass him! 

Unhappily, he did not know the limits of 
his own strength. He did not take sufficient 
nourishment nor rest. He drove his poor 
nerves and whipped his tired brain to medita¬ 
tion and prayer when he should have taken 
needed repose. He did not pay attention to 
those warnings of weariness and strain that 
should have induced him to relax a little and 
86 


On Going Too Far 87 

to give his jangled nerves a chance to recuper¬ 
ate. As a consequence, he broke down quite 
utterly, was entirely unfit and unable to go 
on with his religious training, and so with 
broken health and sorrowful heart he had to 
leave the novitiate and give up the pious hope 
of spending his lifetime in the household of 
God. When he had gone and everyone was 
full of compassion at his misfortune, a wise 
old priest took the occasion to point a gentle 
moral. “You see,” said he to the other 
novices, “there is such a thing as going too 
far even in the right direction.” 

It was a true saying and one that we can 
all ponder on with profit. Any excess is 
likely to be harmful even though it be an 
excess of something which in itself is very 
holy and desirable. Indeed, for those who 
are trying to lead a good life there is some¬ 
times more danger of going too far in the 
right direction than there is of going wrong. 
To go wrong, one who is trying to be good 
would have to leave the path in which he is 
walking and travel in quite the other direc¬ 
tion. But to go too far or too fast in the 
right path is a much more subtle temptation, 
and one, therefore, against which good peo¬ 
ple have especially to be on guard. 


88 


On Going Too Far 

It is far easier to see in the lives of others 
than in our own how they sometimes go too 
far or too swiftly in ways that are right and 
good. We can see too, in their case, how 
unwise this sometimes is and how much harm 
it may bring. The peculiarities of the good 
are almost as hard to bear at times as the 
faults of the perverse and unruly. Once let 
a good person get the bit in his teeth and 
begin running away on the right road, and 
he is harder to stop than a downright bad 
fellow who knows he is doing wrong and can 
therefore be more easily convinced of the 
folly of his ways. Your good individual, 
who knows that he is good and going fast in 
the right direction—who shall convince him 
that he is going too far and too quickly? 

We recognize this truth when others give 
us examples of it. We may even be quite 
eloquent in pointing out their error. If an 
acquaintance of ours neglects her family or 
her other duties to go too often to church, 
we sensibly object. If some too-zealous 
friend is forever dragging controversies into 
his conversation, we remark judiciously that 
he is going too far in a good thing. When 
* someone else exaggerates a doctrine of the 
Church, or over-emphasizes some one pre- 


On Going Too Far 89 

cept so as to go half-crazy on the subject, we 
prudently suggest that he is getting beyond 
the bounds of common sense. It is quite easy 
to see the folly of these “goings too far” on 
the part of others. 

Always, though, we find it hard to see our 
own excesses in the right direction. To see 
them would be the first step toward correct¬ 
ing them, and one reason why we still have 
these habits of exceeding what is prudent by 
going too far in the right way is, that we 
have never quite realized that we actually 
are going too far. It will help to look into 
our lives and see just where and how we may 
be committing this natural and human error. 

We may take it for granted, to begin with, 
that there are some excesses in our lives. We 
are all of us prone to go too far one way or 
the other. Everyone remembers the seven 
wise men of Greece, each one of whom ex~ 
pressed in a sapient maxim the knowledge he 
had gleaned from life. One of them con¬ 
densed his teaching in this saying: “Do 
nothing to excess.” Thereby he implicitly 
conveyed his conviction that one of the most 
serious faults of human nature, one against 
which we need most to be warned, is the 
constant impulse to go to excess in one thing 


90 On Going Too Far 

or the other. That posterity has been of 
the same opinion, we may likewise gather 
from the circumstance that this saying of the 
old sage has been so well treasured by the 
generations and thought worthy of being 
preserved through decades of centuries be¬ 
cause of its consummate wisdom. All in¬ 
dividuals of all days with few and bright ex¬ 
ceptions have needed this ancient warning. 

How can we capture, so to say, our own 
elusive peculiarities in going too far in the 
right direction? One efficacious way is to 
compare ourselves with the common run of 
good people about us and notice where we 
seem peculiar, judged by the normal stand¬ 
ards of the good. The comment and criti¬ 
cism of those about us, unconscious or ex¬ 
pressed, will help us to detect these little 
points of difference. The mere fact that we 
have individual characteristics is of course in 
itself a blessing. We must be ourselves and 
keep what good we have whether others 
resemble us or not. Indeed, the very points 
of difference which we notice in ourselves 
may be our special virtues and not at all 
faults which come from going too far in the 
right direction. 

Yet, among the differences 'which we do 


On Going Too Far 91 

observe in our own character and actions, we 
shall probably discover some which are not 
justified by common sense and which are in 
reality excesses. We should pray to discover 
and correct them. They may be the source 
of more trouble to others and more detriment 
to ourselves than we at first sight imagine. 
There is no sense, of course, in being worried 
or anxious about these goings too far in the 
right direction. Only, if we can, we shall do 
well to remedy them when they are once 
discovered. 

By their fruits we can sometimes detect 
these excesses in us. When any peculiar 
characteristic of ours, even though it seems 
to us very good and praiseworthy, is as a 
matter of fact an occasion of fusses and diffi¬ 
culties with others and of interior disturbance 
and trouble to ourselves, then we have good 
reason to think that we are going a little too 
far, even though it be in the right direction. 
The spirit of God is calm, quiet, peaceable. 

When others, who are themselves good 
and prudent, grow vexed with us about some 
peculiarity we have which seems to us quite 
praiseworthy and good, then again there is 
reason to suspect that we may be going too 
far in the right direction. At least, we should 


92 


On Going Too Far 

examine very carefully whether they may not 
be right in their objection and we wrong in 
our insistence. Their criticism, which may 
only be implied in little remarks or actions 
that give us to understand they do not ap¬ 
prove of our peculiarity, is at least a reason 
for us seriously to examine whether or not 
we are right in being unusual. If we still feel 
sure that we are right, then we may stoutly 
hold our way. But if we find we are going 
too far, even though it be in the right direc¬ 
tion, then we ought clearly and by all means 
to call a halt. 

To apply to ourselves the rules we use in 
judging others, is also an efficacious means of 
discovering where we are going too far in a 
good way. It is much more difficult, of 
course, for us to estimate our own excesses 
than those of others. Their singularities jar 
us and attract our notice and disapproval. 
Our own eccentricities rather please us, and 
we are fondly blind to our own exaggera¬ 
tions. Yet, when we notice someone else 
pushing a good thing too far, it should at least 
be an occasion for us to turn our eyes inward 
and see whether we cannot discover some 
similar trait in ourselves. 

It must not at all discourage us to discover 


On Going Too Far 93 

in these self-examinations that traits in us 
which we have considered very prominent 
virtues turn out after all to be exaggerations 
and excesses. Even the saints found reason at 
times to accuse themselves of going too far in 
good directions. There is the classical in¬ 
stance of St. Bernard who, when he was 
dying, bemoaned the too-great austerity 
whereby he had weakened his poor body, say¬ 
ing with humility: “Alas, in slaying the old 
man I have weakened the new man also.” 
That very self-accusation of the dying saint 
casts, indeed, but a brighter light upon his 
sanctity. It is after all an amiable defect to 
go too far in the right direction. 

Perhaps, therefore, these considerations 
may help us to be more patient with the ex¬ 
cesses we perceive in others as well as more 
vigilant against similar shortcomings in our¬ 
selves. Things that have annoyed us in our 
neighbors, will become much more tolerable 
if we can only get to consider them merely 
as too much of a good thing. We have 
spoken under the title “Our Stronger Weak¬ 
nesses” of the light we can get for our own 
correction and the charity for our neighbor’s 
failings, from remembering that most peo¬ 
ple have the defects of their qualities. It is, 


94 On Going Too Far 

after all, only looking at another aspect of 
the same truth, to say that good people are 
liable to faults in going too far in the right 
direction. 

Sometimes it is a capital act of charity to 
help others to discover that they are thus 
going too far in a good way. Like all admoni¬ 
tions and corrections, this requires much tact 
and human kindness. In fact, it may at times 
need more address and skill to make the good 
recognize and correct their excesses, than it 
does to convert the wicked. Yet, we shall 
see more than once in our various ways 
through this world, that the singularities of 
the good, their undue emphasis on this or 
that right principle, their over-insistence on 
practices and lines of conduct good in them¬ 
selves but exaggerated in their practice, give 
more hurt at times than the malice of the 
wicked. It is a pitiful sight this, of a good 
man or woman plunging along too fast and 
too far on some good quest or endeavor, and 
knocking down and turning over much more 
precious things than what they are rushing 
after in so headlong and inconsiderate a 
fashion. 

The very fact that there is so strong an 


On Going Too Far 95 

element of good in what they are doing, 
makes them quite blind to the excess and dis¬ 
order of their headstrong career. All the 
more caution is needed to admonish or correct 
them or even to slow them up and moderate 
their too rapid pace. They are likely to re¬ 
sent correction as a bad influence, and to re¬ 
sist wise counsel as merely the promptings of 
human prudence and the voice of the 
tempter. In dealing with such people, there¬ 
fore, unusual delicacy and consideration are 
needed. One must keep in mind that they 
are, after all, on the right track, even though 
they are going much too fast and much 
too far. 

Both in our own case then and in the case 
of others over whom we have some influence 
and care, these reflections may prove helpful 
in regulating our course of action. Virtue 
is a delicate balance between two extremes; 
and the golden mean, of which so much has 
been sung and said, is called golden, not only 
because of its great worth, but because it is 
sometimes so rare and hard to achieve. We 
must, therefore, not be discouraged if we 
cannot discover and correct quite all of our 
excesses in the right direction. Enough, 


96 On Going Too Far 

if we are sufficiently humble to take the cor¬ 
rections of life and the admonitions of others 
and come in time to remedy at least our more 
glaring errors in going too far in the 
righteous way. 


ABOUT DYING 



HERE is perhaps no thought from 


which we shrink with a more in¬ 


stinctive fear than that of our own 
death. Indeed, some persons have such an 
inborn horror of this thought that it is to 
be questioned whether they have ever dared 
to meet it face to face. Men have a singular 
power of evading and avoiding unpleasant 
recollections, and this thought of our death 
is so grisly a specter that the mind will make 
great detours rather than meet it fully. If 
we have ever really contemplated the idea 
of death as applied to our own selves, it has 
been as one who sees a ghost far off and runs 
away from it, rather than as one who meets 
the staring horror face to face. 

In fact, it is a frightening subject to con¬ 
template. We know so little of the dark pass 
of death. From other human experiences, 
even the most perilous and appalling, there 
have been some to escape and to describe 
their feelings to us, and so at least the last 
awful touch of sightless mystery has been 
spared us. But who has heard from any mor¬ 
tal lips how it feels or what it means to die? 


97 


98 About Dying 

It is an experience to which we all go ferth 
alone, and from which no man returns to tell 
his neighbor what way he went or how he 
fared. Though the dying may be sur¬ 
rounded by throngs of the most devoted 
friends, yet they go on their lonely way alone. 
Death is, indeed, an undiscovered country to 
us, from whose bourne no traveler returns. 

Our nature shudders at the thought of 
death. That awful tearing asunder of the 
body and the soul which werQ made to be to¬ 
gether; that swift and final breaking of all 
the warm, kind human ties of sympathy and 
affection which hold us close to one another; 
that losing hold of the familiar things we love 
and going out into the unknown, the cold and 
the darkness, is indeed a fitting and a fearful 
punishment for our sins. Death is the most 
dreaded of all the woes that flesh is heir to. 
What price will men not pay, what renuncia¬ 
tions will they not consent to, rather than die! 

It is very desirable for us to have right 
and true thoughts of death. Though we may 
elude the full terror of the thought that we 
must die, still there is a haunting trouble 
about death which lurks forever in the deep 
places of our souls. We may banish the 
thought and avoid it, we may do our very 


About Dying 99 

utmost to escape this brooding fear, yet it 
returns like a silent specter. We may dis¬ 
tract our attention from it for a time, may 
even seek to drive it away in foolish fashion 
by wild distractions and revelry, but it for¬ 
ever lurks, biding its time. Half-seen, in the 
deepest shadows, it strikes a fear into our 
hearts that we cannot entirely withstand. 

We must see to it that our fear gf death 
shall be, not an unwholesome and paralyzing 
fear, but a fear full of profit and stimulus to 
goodness. To fear death and prepare for it, 
to fear death and pray to God, atone for our 
sins, amend our ways—this is wholesome and 
salutary. It is good for us to have such a 
dread of death as makes us pious and hum¬ 
ble. Even the saints have profited from this, 
and the most joyous of them have not wished 
to avoid this wholesome fear of death which 
makes us cry to God for aid, and urges us to 
amend our ways. 

But the manner of fear, that unfruitful 
terror, that grinning specter which disturbs 
and disquiets without purifying the soul, of 
this we should endeavor to be rid by all good 
means. The scrupulous suffer from this fear 
and they are in dismay at the very thought of 
death and judgment. Good and pious people 


IOO 


About Dying 

who have every reason to hope in the mercy 
of God and to look on death as but the cloudy 
gate to heaven, are unduly troubled about 
the thought of dying. While on the other 
hand, the very person who should be most 
concerned and filled with horror at the 
thought of death—the unrepentant sinner, is 
sometimes the very one who seems to have 
no fear of death at all and derives, therefore, 
no profit from the remembrance that he 
must die. 

Let us sensibly consider the true signifi¬ 
cance of death and we shall perhaps be able 
to avoid the excessive and disquieting fear 
which sometimes afflicts good people, and at 
the same time obtain from the salutary re¬ 
membrance that we must die, good fruit for 
our souls. This is what God wishes. He 
has not sent death into the world to be a 
source of fruitless terror or discouraging 
dread. He has ordained it as a punishment 
for sin and also as a help to our salvation. It 
is the devil’s game to make us think of death 
in such a way as to be discouraged and fear¬ 
ful about dying. It is God’s wish that we 
should learn so to consider death as to accept 
11 with calmness and resignation from His 
hand, and gain light from that decisive hour 


About Dying ioi 

so to govern our lives that we may die happily 
and well. 

The Holy Scripture tells us that our Lord 
Jesus Christ* by His own passion and death 
and by His glorious resurrection has over¬ 
come death and dispelled forever for His 
followers its gloomy horrors. “O death, 
where is thy victory,” cries the Church; “O 
death,- where is thy sting?” Our blessed 
Saviour, going Himself through that dark 
way of death, has robbed it of its victory over 
the souls of men, has taken away the sting of 
that blind terror wherewith the very thought 
of death afflicted souls. 

For those who truly believe in, and hope 
in, and love the God-Man, our Saviour, death 
should therefore be more a consolation than 
a fear. Dear blessed Lord Who has consoled 
with His own sufferings all the other sorrows 
of the race of Adam, He has also by His own 
death made it easy for us to die! The 
pagans and all those who have not the full 
truth of Christ, fear death because it is a leap 
in the dark, because it is the portal of judg¬ 
ment, because it is the end of all they know 
and the beginning of all they have most cause 
to fear. To the Christian who lives accord¬ 
ing to the teachings of Christ, these sources 


102 About Dying 

of terror are removed by faith and hope and 
charity. Faith is our earnest that we have 
been redeemed and that the saving power of 
Christ’s blood can wash us clean of sin. 
Hope points out to us the blessed country 
beyond the tomb to which we must go 
through the portals of death. Charity makes 
us wish to be dissolved and to be with God. 
Thus, even the ordinary Christian can find in 
death matter for much consoling thought and 
happy expectation. But to those who love 
God very greatly, their Christian fauh makes 
death not only bearable but desirable and 
sweet. Holy souls who have detached their 
heart from the world and live only for God, 
come in time to desire with a pining expecta¬ 
tion the time when they may die and go to 
God. Even the thought of the period they 
must spend in purgatory does not cast them 
down, for they are as anxious to atone to 
God’s justice as they are to hasten through 
the doors of heaven. 

It is a true grace and one for which we 
should pray, this wish to be dissolved and to 
be with God. It helps to make our heart 
unworldly and to purify our conscience. Far 
from hindering us in the exercise of our 
earthly duties, this holy wish and expectation 


About Dying 103 

of dying makes it easier to bear the labors, 
the sorrows and suffering of the world, which 
seem, indeed, but brief and passing, when 
our eyes are fixed on the eternal reward. We 
grow ready to suffer all things so long as 
God pleases, if in the end we may achieve 
His everlasting friendship and company in 
heaven. 

It is true, one sometimes finds in the gcod 
a special fear of death. This is true in par¬ 
ticular of those who have a very delicate con¬ 
science and are inclined to be troubled about 
their past offenses. They shrink from death 
because they realize so clearly the evil of sin, 
the strictness of God's judgments and because 
they tremble at the uncertainty of their last 
hours and of that searching of their whole 
lives which they shall have to endure the 
instant that life is ended. Yet, it is good to 
know that even though they may have feared 
death very much in anticipation, still, when 
the time comes to die, these good but fearful 
people are often given a wonderful grace of 
resignation, and are upborne and supported 
by God’s grace so mightily that they do not 
fear at all when that solemn moment is 
actually at hand. Indeed, it is quite wonder¬ 
ful to see how a fearful, anxious soul will 


104 About Dying 

sometimes suddenly achieve, just at the mo¬ 
ment when death is imminent, a serene resig¬ 
nation which seems a foretaste of everlast¬ 
ing bliss. 

If one has tried to lead a good and dutiful 
life and to serve God faithfully, why should 
one have this excessive fear of dying? Is 
not God faithful and strong? Has He not 
promised to support those who cry to Him 
and to help them in their necessity? And what 
necessity is so great as that of the dying? 
When do we stand so much in need of God’s 
special aid as when we are about to enter 
eternity, and to have done forever with all 
further chances of merit or repentance ? 

Surely, the most kind, most wise, most 
powerful friendship of God will be with us 
then, if we on our part have striven to be 
His friend during our lives. Surely, God will 
hedge us about with particular graces, strong 
helps, generous protection, at the very mo¬ 
ment of all our lives when we are least able 
to care for and help ourselves. 

All the prayers which we have said to im¬ 
plore the grace of a happy death, all the good 
works we have offered up with the same wise 
forethought, all the intercession of our pa¬ 
tron saints, the kind aid of our Guardian 


About Dying 105 

Angel, the motherly pity of the Blessed 
Virgin, the prayers of St. Joseph, the inter¬ 
cession of the Poor Souls in Purgatory, will 
be more earnestly employed for us at that 
tremendous hour than at any other moment 
of our lives. Whatever good we have done 
our whole life long will be there at our dying 
bed to plead for us, and our most pitiful 
Saviour, to whom all this supplication is ad¬ 
dressed, will be most ready to deliver us and 
bring us safe through the portals of terror. 
Is it not for this He has given up His life 
on the Cross, and for this has fed us so often 
with His Body and Blood? 

As for the actual pain of dying, it appears 
not to be very great. A merciful torpor 
seems to come over the body when the hour 
of dissolution is at hand. However much 
horror and resistance men may have felt be¬ 
forehand, the actual moment of dissolution 
seems to be without much pain or fear. As to 
what happens after death, we may well leave 
it to the mercy of God. It is beyond our 
imagination to conjecture, and God has not 
wished that any should return to describe to 
us the unique experience of that of going out 
into eternity. Yet, surely, it is in itself a won¬ 
drous and holy thing to give one’s soul with 


io6 About Dying 

trust and hope and love into the hands of 
God and lay aside one’s sinful body only to 
take it up again glorified and renewed on the 
last day. Let us accept beforehand our death 
with all its circumstances, as God has planned 
it, and in perfect submission to His holy will. 

Death ends our earthly joys, but it also 
takes away forever all our earthly sorrows. It 
strips us of every possession but it removes 
from us likewise every danger of sinning, 
every occasion of offending God. Thence¬ 
forth for all eternity, all that we do will be 
entirely pleasing to that most gentle and 
loving Father, whom in our weakness we now 
so constantly offend while in this place of 
exile and forgetfulness. If we think thus of 
death we shall be able to elude that excessive 
fear which is discouraging and unfruitful. 
On this side, the portal of death is dark with 
the mists of earth. On the farther side, it is 
bright with the light of heaven. 


THE HOLY ANGELS 


O UR faith assures us that besides the 
race of man there is another people 
of the children of God, the first-born 
of creation. We, who are made of clay and 
spirit, whose knowledge is bounded by what 
we can receive through our fleshly senses and 
whose immortal part, our spiritual soul, is 
compounded with matter and enchained by 
its limitations—we can but with difficulty 
conceive the nature and the powers of those 
pure spirits whom God first created to know 
Him and to serve Him. They are not bound 
as are we with the fetters of the flesh. They 
are superior to matter, free of its galling 
limitations. Bodiless spirits, they are, be¬ 
sides, in a state of heavenly glory. All save 
that sad and direful crowd who failed under 
God’s test and merited for themselves the 
endless gloom of hell, they have been taken 
up into heaven, there to be ministering spirits 
before the throne of God for all eternity. 

We have the further consolation of know¬ 
ing that God allots to each of us, through the 
time of his mortal life, one of these mighty 
angels to be his companion, guide, protector, 
107 


108 The Holy Angels 

comforter and friend. Invisible to us, be¬ 
cause our eyes of the flesh cannot perceive 
the things of the spirit, yet ever present and 
vigilant at their task, in which their heavenly 
charity delights, these guardian spirits abide 
with us through all our waking and our sleep¬ 
ing hours. They keep patient watch to shel¬ 
ter us from evil. They whisper to our souls 
the pious inspirations of their heavenly wis¬ 
dom. We may call on them in every hour 
and be sure that they will hear and heed, for 
it is their office to guard and help us, an office 
given them by the very God they serve. 

Though we cannot see these blessed angels, 
yet the influence of their loving care is per¬ 
ceptible in our daily lives. From how many 
dangers we are shielded. How many holy 
suggestions we receive as we go about our 
daily tasks. From how many assaults of the 
devil, from how many grievous temptations 
which perhaps we should not have courage 
to resist, that heavenly warrior shields us 
whose bright sword is forever unsheathed 
above our head to ward off our unseen 
enemies, the spirits of darkness! If faith and 
gratitude are in our hearts, surely we shall 
many a time breathe acts of fervent, loving 
thankfulness to the Guardian Angel who 


The Holy Angels 109 

never ceases to keep his kind and mighty ward 
and shield us from all harm. 

We can hold converse, too, with those 
blessed spirits. Though they are invisible to 
our dull senses, yet all we wish to say to them 
they have power to hear and understand. 
Our prayers reach them by God’s power, and 
we may communicate to them our thoughts 
and our desires. Thus, though it is only by 
faith and by the experience of their kind pro¬ 
tection that we know they are near, yet to 
them it is easy to observe us, and they have 
powers of perception and of comprehension 
given them by God whereby they can inti¬ 
mately know and sympathize with us all, 
poor children of Adam. It is needful that 
they should have this knowledge of us and 
understanding in order rightly to discharge 
the great office of guardian and protector 
given them by God. 

We should be solicitous, therefore, often 
during the day to remember and address that 
holy angel who stands forever at our side, 
watching us and keeping us in every hour. 
In simple gratitude we should remember him 
often, and say, time and again, at least with 
the interior eloquence of the heart, our thanks 
for his dear service. How strange and mar- 


no 


The Holy Angels 

velous! that an angel of God, bathed in the 
brightness of heaven’s delight, blessed always 
with the beatific vision, one of the great 
courtiers of God, who stands before His 
throne forever, should deign to keep us 
company in this wretched w r orld, to bear vrith 
our puny wickednesses, to endure the fickle¬ 
ness and evil of our ways and to keep us safe, 
despite our sins and misery, ever leading us 
patiently in the way to heaven! 

Great, indeed, is the beauty of that divine 
faith which reveals to us such truths as the 
existence and the protection of Guardian An¬ 
gels. Look out in fancy over the countless 
throngs of men, and see, by the side of each, 
that heavenly spirit who is appointed to be 
his guide and guard. The dark places of the 
world are lit up and made holy by these 
celestial presences. Bright flames of the love 
of God, stars set in the dark firmament of 
human woe and pain, symbols and agents of 
the sleepless tenderness of the Most High, 
and of His immense, unbounded generosity 
and power, these princely messengers from 
heaven pursue their holy ministry, watching 
over good and evil, enduring the persistent 
wickedness of the bad as they delight in the 
holy perseverance of the just, never wearying 


Ill 


The Holy Angels 

nor ceasing their unsleeping watch until death 
comes to take the soul they have been guard¬ 
ing and sets them free from their strict charge 
and ministry. 

Not to our own Guardian Angel alone 
should we pray, but to all the blessed hosts 
which stand and serve by the side of men. 
How many, alas, of those princes of the court 
of God, those glorious spirits who deserve 
unceasing gratefulness and worship, receive 
never a word nor act of recognition and of 
thankfulness from the sorry mortal to whom 
they minister. Day after day they keep their 
station, faithful to their thankless task, look¬ 
ing to God to see and bless their watch. But 
we who know by faith of their unceasing, 
gentle goodness, we should bless and thank 
them all, all and each of the great hosts of 
Guardian Angels who stand by the sons and 
daughters of men. 

It is of vast use for us often to remember 
and vividly to picture to ourselves this host 
of ministering angels. They are the silent 
witnesses of God, discerning His holy provi¬ 
dence as it runs like a golden thread through 
the warp and woof of man’s goodness or 
iniquity. They are the messengers of His 
mercy, immortal visitors to this mortal earth, 


11 2 


The Holy Angels 

the living earnest of His unsleeping provision 
for, and mercy upon mankind, heaven’s am¬ 
bassadors mingling with the life of earth to 
direct it onward and upward toward their 
heaven. 

It should give us a greater reverence and 
esteem even for the least of humanity, to 
remember that to this one also God has 
assigned some angel from His court of 
heaven for a personal guard, a guide of his 
very own to lead him safely to God’s king¬ 
dom. No one is too obscure, too wretched 
or insignificant to receive from God so aston¬ 
ishing a proof of His divine favor. But, 
surely, anyone who has so striking a mark of 
honor as that an angel of God is sent to be 
his guide, can claim our respect and reverence 
for his dignity. There is no little child, how¬ 
ever tiny and weak, but a Guardian Angel 
stands at his side. There is no sinner so low 
and despicable, but God has vouchsafed to 
give him also this mark of love. 

The sight of a great multitude gathered 
together, or even the spectacle of the daily 
crowds upon the street, should bring to our 
mind with overpowering splendor the bright 
thought of the host of Guardian Angels who 
hover in glory over that mass of men. What 


The Holy Angels 113 

do they say to one another, that invisible 
army of heavenly spirits who guard the 
throng of men we see ? How differently they 
judge than the crowds of mortals. How 
earnestly they endeavor to put some heavenly 
wisdom into the hearts and speech of those 
whose vain words rise in clamor, whose 
earthy and sordid deeds offend those pure 
intelligences. 

If the remembrance of the Angel Guar¬ 
dians goes with us as we walk about the town 
and mingle with men’s affairs, it will be a 
great protection to us, and a constant re¬ 
minder of heavenly things. Besides, we 
shall derive no little benefit for ourselves 
from a sincere and tender devotion to the 
Guardian Angels. For they are most in¬ 
clined to help us, they whose very business it 
is, entrusted to them by their heavenly Mas¬ 
ter, to be the guardians and helpers of the 
sons of men. God has given them an eager 
willingness to assist us, because He has given 
them the office and charge of. ministering 
angels. We should be very foolish to doubt 
the great desire of these bright spirits of 
heaven to befriend us, their constant willing¬ 
ness to hear our slightest prayer. 

They are most powerful, too, to bring us 


114 The Holy Angels 

assistance in our every necessity. For God 
would not put them to watch over us with¬ 
out giving them every one great powers, 
mighty faculties. His divine wisdom and 
omnipotence allot to each of His creatures 
those potencies which will enable them rightly 
to do His will and bidding. To these 
angels, whom He has assigned as keepers 
of the sons of men, He has given vast abilities 
to aid us. 

The thought of the presence of these noble 
spirits should likewise be for us a help to the 
constant and holy recollection of the things 
of God. We are apt to grow so immersed in 
this fleshly and mortal life and to forget so 
utterly the eternal realities. We are so en¬ 
thralled by the life of the senses that we find 
it hard to keep our thoughts on divine things 
or even to lift them up to heaven as we 
should do at least from time to time during 
the day. But if we remember and reverence 
the presence of our Guardian Angel, who 
watches and waits by our side each moment 
of the night and day, we shall find his com¬ 
pany a blessed reminder of all that world of 
holy spirits dwelling in heaven in the vision of 
God. Thus, a devotion to our Guardian 
Angel which is vivid, realizing and sincere, 


The Holy Angels 115 

will be a very efficacious means to keep our¬ 
selves mindful of the things immortal. 

The saints have told us that one of the 
best means of increasing in goodness and in 
union with God is the constant recollection 
of God’s holy presence within us and about 
us. The thought of our Guardian Angel, 
who walks with us through this world, but 
’with his eyes forever fixed upon the Most 
High, his lips pouring forth forever the most 
heavenly praises of the Divine Majesty and 
his heart enjoying without cease the beatific 
vision of God’s beauty and holiness, will be 
an aid for us to remember the everlasting 
presence everywhere of that infinite Father 
who is our comforter and friend. Our Angel 
Guardian enjoys the Vision of God wherever 
he goes with us, and God, forever near us, 
and within us, is visible to our holy angel 
though He is alas, unseen by our dull eyes 
of flesh. 

But while devotion to the Guardian Angels 
is of great personal profit to us, it is of almost 
equal help in our dealings with others. 
Those in particular who have to do with the 
sanctification of souls, those who are engaged 
in social work, who have often to do with 
difficult and stubborn characters, and who 


II6 The Holy Angels 

need to exercise good influence over their 
minds and hearts, should have recourse often 
and with great confidence to the Guardian 
Angels of those whom they are anxious to 
assist and save. For these celestial spirits 
have great power over the minds and hearts 
of those committed to their care. With heav¬ 
enly wisdom they can incline their charges 
toward good and divert them from evil. 
They are most eager to assist us, men and 
women who are toiling for the very same end 
for which they, the bright angels, likewise 
work at God’s bidding—to wit, the salvation 
of souls. 

Those who have care of the sick, who are 
charged with the upbringing of families, who 
have others under their direction—in a word, 
all who are concerned in any way in dealing 
with others’ souls, should put great confidence 
in the Guardian Angels and do much to enlist 
their aid and intercession. Persons who have 
been accustomed to practice deep and per¬ 
severing devotion to the Angel Guardians 
have many wonderful things to tell of the 
kindness with which these blessed spirits si¬ 
lently and unseen, yet in the most efficacious 
way, take part in the affairs of men to help, 
protect, and cheer the souls entrusted to their 


The Holy Angels 117 

care. It is a sweet and precious thing dearly 
to love and fervently to worship the holy 
Guardian Angels. 

While we venerate and remember that 
great heavenly army of pure spirits whose 
duty it is to guide and guard the living chil¬ 
dren of Adam, those Guardian Angels sent 
from their heaven to live in the world, and 
carrying heaven with them where they go, we 
shall do well to remember and to worship 
also those other angels, greater still in num¬ 
ber, who abide before the throne of God in 
heaven, giving Him unceasing worship while 
we wake and while we sleep. There, in 
countless array, are the angels and arch-, 
angels, the powers and dominations, the 
principalities and thrones, the virtues, the 
cherubim and seraphim—all the nine choirs 
of glorious spirits. Each of these choirs is 
an excellent army of uncounted intelligences, 
all glorified and transfigured by the beatific 
vision. They dwell forever, exulting before 
God’s face, while from their harmonious 
company there rises always that great chant 
of praise and exultation in which join un¬ 
ceasingly the voices of the blessed and to 
which we hope that in God’s time our song 
also may be added, crying: “Holy, holy, 


118 The Holy Angels 

holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and 
earth is full of Thy glory!” 

Becoming thus friends with the angels on 
earth and in heaven, taking delight in their 
remembrance and their company, we shall be 
admitted at last to the precious friendship of 
these princes of God’s heavenly court. They 
will look on us kindly and mention us one to 
the other, keeping especial watch and guard 
over us because we have paid them a singu¬ 
lar reverence and love. So may we pass 
from the friendship of the angels on earth to 
their unspeakably more glorious and intimate 
friendship in heaven, and take our place one 
day in their spotless company to join in their 
eternal chorus of rejoicings and in the praises 
which they raise without ceasing before the 
throne of God and of the Lamb. 


ON MOTIVES 



HERE is an inane pun which has 


provoked a sickly smile from many 


generations of hardened punsters. It 
runs somewhat in the following fashion: 
“Why is a crow the wisest of all animals?” 
When the hapless victim has puzzled long 
enough over this elusive riddle, the poser of 
it answers with glee: “Because it never 
does anything without cause!” In the re¬ 
semblance of sound, not spelling, between 
“cause” and “caws,” lies, we need hardly 
say, the solution of this wretched riddle! 

We quote this popular quip with due 
apologies. It is useful in the present in¬ 
stance, not for any intrinsic merit, for it has 
none, but to show that even in the minds of 
chronic punsters there exists the conviction 
that a reasonable being is one who does 
everything with a cause. We shall do well to 
bring this home vividly to ourselves even by 
the shock of such a riddle. It is a truth which 
we know, but too seldom act on. If we can 
manage to get a practical grasp of the fact 
that all reasonable beings act from causes or 


120 


On Motives 


motives, then we shall get far toward under¬ 
standing and helping others and ourselves. 

The causes from which reasonable beings 
act are called their motives because they move 
and incline the will to choose this one line of 
action and avoid that other. These motives 
are perceived and grasped by the intelligence. 
This seeing faculty of the soul observes the 
good that can be expected from a certain line 
of action and represents it to the will. The 
will, which is of its very nature inclined to 
choose what is good, then assents to the mo¬ 
tive thus proposed to it by the intelligence, or 
refuses its assent. In the one case, we say 
that we have freely chosen to do thus and 
so; in the other, we have freely chosen not 
to do it. 

The will, under normal circumstances, re¬ 
mains free even in the presence of most 
powerful motives. It chooses and refuses, 
not because the motives presented to it force 
it into action, but only because they allure 
and induce it to choose or to refuse. When 
the intellect has done all it can in the way of 
presenting motives for a certain course, the 
will is still free to choose to do otherwise. 
This power of self-determination possessed 
by the normal human will, is what we call its 


On Motives 


121 


freedom. Our very consciousness assures us 
that we have free will and can do or refuse 
what we like. We cannot fathom the depths 
of this mysterious power, but its existence is 
witnessed by our own unerring consciousness 
of freedom and by the common consent of 
all mankind. 

Yet, though the will is free, there are some 
motives w T hich when properly presented to 
it appeal so powerfully that there is a moral 
certainty that they will move the will to ac¬ 
tion. Thus, for example, when the motive of 
saving one’s life or escaping from great pain 
and danger is presented to the will and there 
is no counterbalancing motive to offset it, we 
are morally certain that a normal person will 
choose to avoid death, great pain, danger or 
any other impending evil which he has no 
motive to wish to suffer. It is true that even 
in such a case the will remains free and the 
person in question can deliberately choose to 
suffer pain, danger, even death from some 
motive which in itself does not at all counter¬ 
balance the strong motive of self-preserva¬ 
tion. Yet, under ordinary circumstances, 
when a very strong motive for an action is 
opposed by very weak motives against it, we 
are morally certain that the will will be dis- 


122 


On Motives 


posed to act according to the much stronger 
motive, even though all the time it remains 
essentially free. 

We can convince ourselves of this truth, 
that the will is powerfully acted on by the 
stronger motives and inclines to act according 
to the greater urge upon it, by noticing what 
happens within us when we are endeavoring 
to make up our mind on some important ques¬ 
tion. Let us suppose, for example, that we 
are engaged in some work which we like well 
enough in sufficiently pleasant surroundings, 
when someone unexpectedly makes us an 
offer of another position. We at once inquire 
about the conditions of the offered occupa¬ 
tion. What is the nature of the work? 
What is the salary, what are the circum¬ 
stances of employment? Having found out 
all these things, we begin to weigh the 
motives for going to the new employment 
against those for remaining in the old. If 
the advantages of either position are pretty 
evenly balanced, then we say that there is no 
motive strong enough to make us wish to 
change. But if any one of the circumstances 
of the new position seems very attractive, 
then it may be sufficient to move us to make 
up our mind to go there. That was the de- 


On Motives 


123 

termining motive which induced our resolu¬ 
tion. When we come to the new place and 
grow actually acquainted with the circum¬ 
stances of our new work, it is quite likely 
that some new motive may arise which 
changes our mind again. We may find the 
work exceedingly hard or the location dis¬ 
agreeable, or the company intolerable. This 
new motive may make us quite reverse our 
former decision, wish we had never come to 
the new place, and decide to leave it. Thus, 
our wills are incessantly being acted upon by 
motives and influences. 

A motive which is in itself quite worthless 
may, however, be made very strong through 
some misrepresentation or by the action of 
passion, habit or the influence of others. If 
our intelligence were unerring and our will 
entirely right and quite uninfluenced by feeling 
and passion, we should find it easy always to 
choose wisely and to weigh the motives pro¬ 
posed us according to their true value and to 
our own best interest. But, unhappily, our 
poor intellects are very easily deluded, and 
the constant push of passion, feeling, prej¬ 
udice, disturbs the balance of our will and 
makes it hard for us to act reasonably and to 
follow the better motives proposed to us. 


124 


On Motives 


Again, a motive which in itself is immense¬ 
ly powerful and should appeal with almost re¬ 
sistless force to our better nature, may have 
a very weak influence upon us, and indeed 
may scarcely be attended to at all, because it 
is so feebly presented to our mind. Thus, for 
instance, the existence of an everlasting place 
of reward and of an equally enduring place 
of punishment toward one or other of which 
we are each one traveling and in the one or 
the other of which we must abide forever, is a 
motive of such unspeakable efficacy that did 
we thoroughly realize this truth of faith we 
would far prefer to die than deliberately to 
offend Almighty God, and we should con¬ 
stantly order our lives so as to merit more 
and more of the great glory of heaven. 

Yet, how many there are who firmly be¬ 
lieve this stupendous truth but realize it so 
very little that they will calmly go on in a 
life of open sin, allowing their will to be 
moved by the wretched and contemptible 
motives of present pleasure, profit, the en¬ 
joyment of doing as they please, and all 
the other pitiful motives for sinning, and 
will be scarcely influenced at all by this 
tremendous motive for goodness which, 


On Motives 


125 

realized, would in itself be enough to make 
them and keep them saints. 

The instances given, will open to the 
thoughtful reader long vistas of reflection. 
Review your own life and think upon its 
critical periods when you made decisions 
which have powerfully influenced the whole 
after-course of your existence. Recalling 
your reflections and the reasons which in¬ 
duced you to take this or that momentous 
course of action, you may be able to discern 
the various motives which influenced your 
will. At this distance of time you may be 
able to discriminate between the motives 
which were solid, just and right, and those 
which were specious, deceptive and un¬ 
worthy. The actions which you performed 
under the influence of the former were good, 
reasonable and happy in their consequences, 
at least for heaven. Those which you did 
from base, unworthy motives were evil and 
unhappy in their results. If you had taken 
greater care to ensure a proper store of good 
motives for your will, you might have 
avoided what was evil in your past and have 
done far more that was good and profitable 
for eternity. 


126 


On Motives 


If we are wise, then, we shall take good 
care to watch over the motives of our ac¬ 
tions. We shall examine our conscience 
from day to day to discover by what manner 
of motives our will is being influenced. We 
shall be frank and honest with ourselves in 
discovering the bad motives in us which are 
inclining our will to evil. It needs careful 
and continued scrutiny and no small courage 
and perseverance rightly to know and judge 
of our own acts. Selfishness may easily mas¬ 
querade as prudence, cowardice as common 
sense, bashfulness as humility, pride as 
proper self-respect, and so on through the 
catalogue. 

We must not rest satisfied, though, with 
merely discovering the wrong motives that 
have moved us. It is of even more im¬ 
portance to supply to our wills strong motives 
for goodness. This is one of the blessed re¬ 
sults of meditation and prayer, that these 
freshen and make stronger and more vivid 
the motives which will keep our actions just 
and right. The more we dwell on the eternal 
truths the more we ask God’s help to realize 
and act upon them, the more our intelligence 
will be enriched with good thoughts and en¬ 
lightened by God’s grace to present to our 


On Motives 


127 

will worthy and holy reasons, vivid and 
strong for right and meritorious actions. 

Good reading is likewise of excellent use 
in strengthening and purifying our good mo¬ 
tives. The lives of the saints in particular 
are full of incentives, which come to us with 
the more power because they are presented 
through the medium of example and not 
merely given to us by way of abstract precept 
and exhortation. The best of all encourage¬ 
ments come to us from the teachings of Our 
Lord, in His holy Gospel. But the lives of 
the saints have been called the Gospel in 
action. We shall be wise, therefore, if w t 
read every day some passages at least from 
the exploits of these heroes of God. There 
are now many lives of the saints written in 
modern phrase and in a way to interest our 
modern mind. Let us not neglect these rich 
mines of holy motives from which we can 
have, at so little trouble, great stores of the 
golden stuff of which holy deeds are made. 

In dealing with others, too, we should 
always bear in mind the power and the need 
of motives to persuade them. They, like 
ourselves, are influenced by the reasons for 
acting or refusing which are presented to 
them, and they will be inclined to do good the 


128 


On Motives 


more willingly and perseveringly or to resist 
evil more staunchly, according as we succeed 
in giving them motives which are good in 
themselves and which appeal to them, and in 
making these motives vivid, impressive and 
strong. Much preaching and persuasion 
misses its mark because it is not reinforced 
by sufficient motives. All the rhetoric on 
earth is persuasive only in proportion as it 
avails to clarify and drive home good motives 
for action. On the other hand, one can dis¬ 
pense with eloquence and yet be most per¬ 
suasive, if. one has the earnestness and good 
sense to bring the right motives home. 

When, therefore, you wish to help an¬ 
other, see to it that you first prepare motives 
enough to move him, and then make it your 
effort to bring those motives to bear on his 
intelligence, and so upon his will. If we 
would look more to motives and less to 
wordy exhortations we should have more 
fruit from our work for others. Keep this 
matter of motives likewise in mind when you 
wish to persevere yourself or to help others 
persevere in some line of action that is holy. 
Refresh the memory on the motives for per¬ 
severance from time to time. Renew at in¬ 
tervals the vivid apprehension of the reasons 


On Motives 


129 

which led you to take the resolution or to urge 
it upon others. If you can keep the recollec¬ 
tion bright, your resolution will remain 
strong and effective. This is the purpose of 
retreats, of meditation, of monthly recollec¬ 
tions, of examens. We incline to grow lax 
and forget our good resolves because our 
motives grow dim and weak and are forgot¬ 
ten. Take care of your motives, keep them 
fiesh and bright and strong and pure, and 
your whole life will become noble. For good 
motives most help a good will, and a good 
will makes a holy life. 


REPARATION 


I T has been somewhere suggested, we do 
not now recall just in what book or 
essay or chance remark, that the souls of 
the just in purgatory may spend at least a 
part of their sad time of atonement in re¬ 
visiting with sorrow the places where in this 
life they sinned. Unseen and often unre¬ 
membered, beyond the bounds of this terres¬ 
trial life, disembodied spirits, with no flesh to 
clothe them and no form that eyes can see, 
these spirits of purgatory, so this conjecture 
has it, make their mournful atonement in the 
very spots wherein their mortal life was 
spent. From one place to the other through 
all the haunts they knew, in all the spots they 
have dwelt or journeyed, they go in sad pro¬ 
cession, spending so much time in mourning 
in every place for the sins they wrought 
there, as is sufficient to satisfy the eternal 
justice for the penance and satisfaction due 
for every sin. 

It is a gratuitous speculation merely, 
and who can say whether it be true or 
no? In God’s revelation we are given 
but few details concerning the souls in purga- 

t3o 


Reparation 131 

tory. That there is a state of atone¬ 
ment in which the just who have died with 
some stains of sin still on their soul must 
abide until they are quite purified and fit to 
enter heaven is of faith, taught in the Scrip¬ 
tures and defined by the Council of Trent. 
But whether purgatory is in one place or in 
many, whether the souls of the just in purga¬ 
tory remain all together or are scattered 
about the world is not told us by the authori¬ 
tative teaching of the Church. So this im¬ 
pressive thought, that each one makes atone¬ 
ment there where the sin was done, can 
neither be affirmed nor denied by the authority 
of Catholic teaching. It is a moving thought 
and we are free to profit by it if we will. 

Suppose for a moment it were true, and 
bring home to yourself in a vivid way the 
journeying of these poor, repentant souls. 
Against the background of the sunny world 
full of nervous and insistent life, in the broad 
streets filled with light and thronged with 
rushing crowds, in quiet homes where the 
peaceful waters of familv life flow silently, 
and in great populous office buildings where 
the turbid currents of business hurry and 
roar, through all the changing various ways 
and places where they lived, the poor souls 


132 Reparation 

move or wait, lamenting for their sins. Un¬ 
seen presences, lonely in the greatest crowds, 
revisiting the life of which they are no longer 
a part, they see (with what just and accu¬ 
rate vision now!) all the true values of life 
and all the meaning of opportunity. 

Stripped of the flesh and its passions, illu¬ 
sions and desires, they can weigh, with pre¬ 
cise and impartial judgment, the worth of 
created things, and they see and acknowledge 
how utterly valueless are all things save just 
in so far as they may be used to do God’s will 
and to gain merit in His sight and glory in 
His kingdom, or avoided and abstained from 
in conformity to His good pleasure. Aloof 
from life, looking from the vantage point of 
the threshold of eternity, with the clear light 
which comes at the moment of death still 
streaming upon them, they can detect every 
fallacy of the world, the flesh and the devil 
which deluded and distracted them when they 
were living on earth. They see now, life 
and its opportunities, temptations, pitfalls 
and graces as God sees them. They weigh 
and estimate all things according to the stand¬ 
ards of God. 

We can fancy how memory, pitiless and 
minute in every past detail of their conscious 


Reparation 133 

and willful life on earth, recalls to them in 
every place each responsible movement of 
their will, every deliberate action which had in 
it merit or guilt. In the very place where the 
deed was done they re-enact every instant of 
it, realizing with ruthless exactness their pre¬ 
cise degree of blame and guilt before their 
all-just and all-holy Master and God. Surely 
one would conjecture such a vivid and explicit 
review of every moment of one’s life which 
had in it any shadow of demerit is part of 
the sleepless vigil of the suffering souls. 

Ah, with what different estimates of good 
and of evil they rehearse now, in pain and in 
sorrow, those actions of their lives which 
were so lightly and carelessly done in the 
midst of their thoughtless days on earth. 
How they groan in spirit at the thought of so 
many opportunities for merit and for glory 
which they let lightly escape them there in 
those fleeting moments of the past, and which 
now are gone forever. Nor will that more 
excellent glory which they might have gained 
for all eternity in heaven ever be theirs. For 
they have let a part of the good gift escape 
them and have exchanged for the silly mess 
of pottage—ease, pleasure, self-will, sloth, in¬ 
dulgence—that precious part of their heaven- 


134 Reparation 

ly birthright which they might have gained 
so easily and forever by effort, self-denial, 
faithfulness to God’s will, zeal, penance, 
charity. The keen regret for lost oppor¬ 
tunities and for chances of merit foolishly 
foregone, will surely be one of the most 
piercing pains of that place of sorrow. 

As for the positive sins they committed, 
how utterly do these poor souls regret and 
repudiate them now. They have no illusions 
any longer, and all their estimates of value 
are just and right. They see that sin, even 
the least and half-deliberate sins, are an 
enormous evil, while sins that were deliberate 
afflict them unbearably by their very remem¬ 
brance because they now know so well the 
outrageous ingratitude, the atrocious villainy 
of sin. They now realize distinctly that sin 
is the one real evil in creation, and, bitter as 
their pain and sorrow are, they would not 
suffer one particle less in atonement. On the 
contrary, they yearn for still greater draughts 
of bitter anguish because their sense of justice 
makes them desire to suffer still more than 
God requires, so that they may make still 
greater reparation for their sins. 

If these poor souls can lift their gaze even 
for an instant from the contemplation of their 


Reparation 135 

own so deeply mourned-for offenses, and look 
upon the men and women who tenant now in 
the flesh the scenes in which their own mortal 
lives were spent, how they must wonder and 
grieve at the folly of mankind. How they 
must suffer to see the sins by which God is 
still offended, to observe that we, who like 
themselves, have the guidance of the faith 
and the help of the grace of God, still persist 
with mad willfulness in sinning, still neglect 
the bright opportunities for merit here and 
glory hereafter which the love of God per¬ 
petually offers to us, still abuse His multiplied 
graces and still commit the supreme and 
singular folly of using His own creatures, 
the gifts of His own hand, to offend Him. If 
we can but for one moment put ourselves in 
place of one of these sad, repentant souls and 
for one instant see the world and our own 
lives through those clear, disillusioned eyes, 
how breathless will be the revelation to us 
of our folly in the past, how keen will be our 
appreciation of our opportunities, now, and 
in the davs that still remain. 

It mav be still more helpful to us to run 
forward in imagination to the time when we 
too shall be disembodied souls in purgatory, 
revisiting with pain and sorrow the scenes of 


136 Reparation 

our mortal life. We know not how soon or 
how late that day may come. We hope by 
God’s mercy to die in His friendship. But 
which of us can look forward to leaving this 
life quite cleansed and free from the stains of 
sin? So, we may well anticipate our purga¬ 
tory. Imagine yourself, driven by the justice 
of God and urged by your own deep sorrow, 
to revisit in spirit the scenes of your mortal 
life and grieve for the sins committed there. 
Remember for a moment all the places where 
you have lived. From that time of your 
childhood when you first reached the age of 
reason and began to be responsible for your 
deliberate actions, your restless feet have 
been wandering in many places, your life has 
been lived in many scenes. Go back to them 
in memory, one by one. Where did you 
dwell when you had just attained the age of 
responsibility? Where was your childhood 
passed, and where your youth? You have 
lived many days and in many hours you have 
done many deeds. In many things you have 
pleased God and stored up merit for heaven 
and for this be thankful. But bear to look 
with courage and sincerity on the darker side 
of your life. Not with trouble and anxiety, 
but with sincere contrition and hopeful peni- 


Reparation 137 

tence review, as you shall review them in 
purgatory, your shortcomings and sins and 
grieve for them out of the love of God, 
making sincere and contrite reparation. It 
is blessed for us thus to anticipate our 
purgatory. 

Endeavor to imagine, vividly and clearly, 
what would be your feelings, your regrets 
and desires if you, as a disembodied soul of 
purgatory, were to revisit the scenes of the 
life you now are living and to contemplate 
your own self as you are at this present hour. 
What will you then wish to have done and 
what to have avoided? Do and avoid these 
same things now and you will be very secure. 
What motives will you wish then to have 
insisted on and to have chosen as the main¬ 
springs of your action? Act on those motives 
now and you shall be sure of merit and safe 
from sin. What lines of conduct will you 
wish to have adopted? What good works 
will you desire to have engaged in, what 
atonement will you long to have made for 
past sins, what penance to obtain mercy for 
others? Do these things now, while there is 
yet time, and you will remove from your poor 
soul the sad necessity of those after and un¬ 
availing regrets. Lay the specters of duties 


13 8 Repavation 

undone and tasks unfulfilled by courageously 
bending yourself to work to accomplish all 
that God expects and that your soul will here¬ 
after desire. Have pity on that self of yours 
to be, by becoming now that better self which 
you will wish hereafter to have been. If you 
can but see this present hour and all future 
hours through the eyes of your own soul in 
purgatory, you will be stirred beyond meas¬ 
ure to self-amendment and self-perfecting. 
If you can see the past from that same van¬ 
tage point of clear vision, you will abound in 
true contrition, deep love of God and the 
salutary penance which will anticipate and 
greatly shorten your sad time in purgatory. 

Observe that it matters really very little 
to the moving efficacy of these considerations 
whether it be true or not, as this conjecture 
has it, that the souls in purgatory really do 
revisit the scenes of their mortal life and 
there make atonement. For it is enough for 
our purpose if in vivid memory they rehearse 
again each deliberate instant of their lives. 
Memory, vivid, exact and particular as 
theirs must be, aided by the mighty power of 
God, can recall as truly and as movingly each 
slight detail of life as actual presence could. 
Who will question that in that place of atone- 


Reparation 139 

ment, where justice must be satisfied and the 
misdeeds of our mortal life reversed by peni¬ 
tence and reparation, the panorama* of their 
lives \yill pass before the poor souls in vision 
so that they may duly appreciate and right¬ 
fully regret all they have done amiss. 

We must take from such thoughts as these 
not terror nor discouragement, but stimulus 
to energy and effort in the love and service of 
God and our neighbor, courage and fidelity 
in making atonement for our sins. If we look 
to our own weakness and sinfulness our case 
does indeed seem desperate. But if we con¬ 
sider the infinite kindness and boundless power 
of God we shall not give way to cowardly 
fear. If it were not for His mercy we should 
all be consumed. But He is patient, long- 
suffering in love, and He wills not that any 
soul that He has made should perish. In 
hopeful fear, therefore, and fearful hope, 
distrusting our own selves and confident in 
Him, let us work out our salvation, roused 
up and urged on to holy deeds and loving 
reparation by the thought of the souls in 
purgatory. May our sight be made clear and 
our strength renewed by seeing through their 
eyes all things as they are in life, in death 
and eternity! 


LIFE’S TEACHING 


M ANY of the details of God’s provi¬ 
dence are entirely hidden from us. 
We shall know them only on judg¬ 
ment day, or perhaps in heaven, when it may 
be part of the bliss of our eternity to trace 
out in detail the wonderful work of His 
weavings whereby out of the warp of 
circumstance and the woof of human will 
He maketh His external glory. Now, 
to use the good old metaphor once again, 
we see but the under-side with its knots 
and rough places. We shall have to wait in 
patience until hereafter the color and sym¬ 
metry of His vast design are disclosed to our 
enchanted vision. 

Yet even here, in the midst of the weaving, 
by the dim light of this underworld we can 
detect certain great outlines of God’s pattern 
as His shuttle moves to and fro over the wide 
loom of the earth. We can discern certain 
features of God’s providence because they 
are woven great and plain over the whole 
face of human affairs. It is good for us to 
study and discover these large plans of 
God because the knowledge enables us to 
140 


Life’s Teaching 141 

cooperate better with the good pleasure of 
His Divine Majesty and the beauty of that 
small bit of His designs which we can deter¬ 
mine, strengthens our faith in the vast, com¬ 
plex harmony which as yet we cannot see. 

We know by faith that God is the infinite 
Lord and Master of the universe. He holds 
in His almighty hands all creatures whom He 
has made. They once were not, and He is 
forever and in all eternity. He brought them 
to be, drawing them out of their original 
nothingness by an act of His all-powerful 
will. He sustains them in being and without 
His continual support they would fall back in 
an instant to their primal nothingness. He 
knows them most intimately, being ignorant 
of nothing past, present, future, actual and 
possible. Of His own essence He compre¬ 
hends all things and He needs not the aid of 
any creature. Upon His fingers are the ends 
of the earth. To us it seems that many 
things in life happen by chance, or, as we too 
often have to say in sorrow, by a mischance, 
arising from causes which we cannot calculate 
nor for the most part even understand. Good 
luck and bad, adverse and favorable days 
follow one the other over the ways of our 
life as spots of sun and shadow race over the 


142 Life’s Teaching 

landscape on a windy day when clouds are in 
the sky. We can never tell in the morning 
what is to befall us by noon, and a long suc¬ 
cession of calm and happy days gives us no 
assurance that the morrow will not bring 
some unexpected and crushing sorrow. Un¬ 
certainty and chance seem, to earthly eyes 
unenlightened by faith’s teaching, to rule 
our lives. 

But to the eyes of faith, nothing whatso¬ 
ever happens by chance and there is no such 
thing as luck or fortune whether good or evil. 
From the greatest to the least God knows 
and governs all. He is concerned with as 
utterly, He watches and knows as completely 
the slightest detail of the most insignificant 
happening of our lives as He does the 
mightiest circumstance that ever swayed the 
fate of nations. Little and great alike and 
together are under the eyes and beneath the 
governing hands of the Master of Life. 
Faith assures us that all things whatsoever— 
pleasure and pain, being and death, riches 
and poverty—come alike from the hands 
of God. 

The pagans, who had not the light of 
Christian teaching to help them understand 
God’s ways in the world, spoke much of 


Life’s Teaching 143 

fate and of fortune. The keen-minded 
Greeks, searching the riddle of life’s mean¬ 
ing, thought they discerned therein the over¬ 
ruling power of a fate which they made 
superior both to gods and to men. “Who 
can resist his fate,” they said, “or who can 
withstand that unseen power which rules even 
the counsels of the gods?” Their majestic 
tragedies are full of the dark, mysterious in¬ 
fluence of this fate which ruled in their eyes 
over the destinies of mankind. To this the 
heroes of their dramas bowed in an enforced 
submission. Under the iron hand of a re¬ 
lentless fate, kings toppled from their 
thrones, and warriors, though victors on a 
hundred fields, at last breathed out their 
souls from bloody wounds and their pale 
spirits went to haunt the country of the dead. 
This was their poor guess at the solution of 
the riddle of life which they could not read. 
They only pushed back the mystery. Unable 
to conjecture the overruling mercy and kind¬ 
ness of an infinite Father in heaven, they 
missed the loveliest of life’s lessons, and 
while their keen philosophy surveyed the 
heavens and earth it could not lead them to 
the full knowledge of God’s overruling love. 

But to us, if we have the light of faith, the 


144 Life’s Teaching 

world looks far otherwise than it did to those 
poor wanderers in pagan darkness. Every 
detail of life is luminous with a significance 
which it has from the very fact of God’s 
overruling providence. Since He has known 
from eternity even the slightest thing that 
shall befall us, since He has weighed and con¬ 
sidered all and suffers each event to come to 
pass, even the least detail of our lives is full of 
meaning, and we can learn countless lessons 
from the happenings even of our most ordi¬ 
nary days. Nothing is slight or without 
meaning when it comes to us directly and of 
eternal purpose from the hand of an all-wise 
and all-kind God. The moments are ambas¬ 
sadors, which run to us from Him, each with 
its hands full of opportunities. They are 
teachers that come, every one with its par¬ 
ticular lesson, which it repeats to us clearly 
enough if only we are willing to learn. 

To take this view of the events of our lives 
is immensely consoling. It opens to us, be¬ 
sides, vast opportunities for knowing better 
the will of God in our regard. God’s will is 
manifested to us by the occurrences of our 
daily lives. He teaches us, not by messages 
of angels nor by voices from heaven, but by 
the constant, simple, easy lessons brought to 


Life’s Teaching 145 

us without cease by the ordinary occurrences 
of our everyday life which He has foreseen 
and suffered to come to pass in accordance 
with His eternal providence. 

We should pray and strive, then, to read 
well life’s daily lessons. They teach us so 
convincingly if we will but heed them. Every 
experience has a voice and a pointing finger 
to show us better paths. Wise, very wise, are 
they who know how to learn from the daily 
lessons of experience. Even our mistakes 
are full of instruction for us. Why does God 
allow us to fall into so many errors? 
Doubtless, so that we may learn in that surest 
school of experience. A little child just learn¬ 
ing to walk has many bumps and tumbles. 
Yet his mother lets him bump and tumble on, 
knowing that only in this way can he learn at 
last to stand straight and to walk. A teacher 
corrects with patience the faults of his pupil’s 
compositions, knowing that by falling into 
many queer mistakes and by having his atten¬ 
tion often called to his errors he will 
learn at last. In similar ways, God expects 
us to learn by our errors and He suffers us 
to fall into many a foolish mistake so that 
at last we may acquire wisdom. 

It is senseless, therefore, to grow discour- 


146 Life's Teaching 

aged or despondent about our mistakes and 
foolishnesses. How else shall we learn than 
by seeing where we have heretofore gone 
wrong? Our heavenly Teacher dislikes more 
than we do the disorder and silliness of our 
errors. But He suffers them so that we may 
learn better ways. If we use these oppor¬ 
tunities as He intends, we shall grow wiser 
and wiser. If we allow ourselves to become 
discouraged about them, we shall miss the 
profit and* keep the pain. Be interested in 
your own faults and shortcomings. There is 
no better way to grow wise than by observing 
and correcting one’s daily foolishnesses. It 
is no great disgrace for a pupil to make mis¬ 
takes. But only a dullard and a simpleton 
will keep on making the came mistakes day 
after day and never profit by them. 

God means, too, that we should learn by 
our successes. In many things we all offend, 
Scripture so assures us. But in many things 
also we do well and rightly. We should be 
as anxious to repeat and improve upon our 
successes as we are to learn from and avoid 
our mistakes. It is no good keeping our eyes 
fixed always on our faults. Take a fair look, 
from time to time, at your nobler qualities 
and past good deeds, not indeed to take any 


Life’s Teaching 147 

foolish pride, but to thank God for them, and 
to cheer up your soul to do still better another 
time. Our mistakes teach us what is wrong 
in us and what we lack. Our achievements 
show us where we are strong and may hope 
to do still greater service to God hereafter. 
To study our errors makes us humble and 
careful. To notice our successes should leave 
us courageous and full of hope. Often we 
need courage sorely to get on at all. It will 
go ill with us if we learn the one lesson with¬ 
out the other. 

Life’s lessons come to us also from the 
mistakes and virtues of others. We can read 
in others’ lives most excellent instruction for 
the guidance of our own. Indeed, it is easier 
for us to see clearly and correctly what is 
worthy of praise and blame in the lives of 
other people, and while we must refrain from 
judging them or condemning, because merit 
and guilt depend on the interior motive which 
we cannot see, and because judgment belongs 
to God, yet we can discern the exterior 
beauty or unseemliness of what others do, 
and be warned thereby what to imitate or to 
avoid. Some of the most valuable lessons 
of life come to us from the impressions made 
on us by the acts of others. We shall be wise 


148 Life’s Teaching 

if we take care to use their example, not to 
waste our energies in envying them or con¬ 
demning, but to imitate what we see is good 
and to avoid what we realize is evil. It is 
for this end that God allows us to see and 
to observe their actions. He cautions us not 
to judge others, but He wishes us to learn 
from them. 

As to the lessons offered us by inanimate 
things and by the constant succession of life’s 
joys and sorrows, failures and successes, they, 
too, are most precious and beyond all num¬ 
ber. Lit by faith, there is no corner of our 
lives which is not seen to contain treasures of 
heavenly wisdom. The wretchedness and 
little worth of the good things of this world 
are forever driven home to us more and more 
by every day’s experience. The swiftness 
with which our hours and years go by, for¬ 
ever preaches to us. Misfortunes admonish 
us, joys remind us of the everlasting joy, both 
the bitter and the sweet of life’s daily cup re¬ 
mind us without ceasing of sin’s punishment 
and virtue’s reward, of the ill-savor of time 
and the sweetness of eternity, of our 
wretchedness that is and of our happiness 
to be. 

All these lessons come to us obscurely, as 
we have said, not in the clear and flooding 


Life’s Teaching 149 

light wherein we shall see God’s designs 
made plain in the brightness of eternity. To 
see with such perfect vision is not vouchsafed 
us now. It is part of our merit and one of 
the conditions of our state of trial that we 
must walk in the half-light of this lower 
world to win heaven’s felicity. Yet with 
good will and prayer, looking at all things 
with the eyes of faith, and using to the full 
the light we have, it is wonderful how much 
we can make out of God’s great plan, how 
many lessons we can learn from life’s 
complexity. 

Like good scholars and humble pupils in 
God’s school we must be content to study 
from day to day the lesson which He sets us. 
It is vain to repine if the task does not please 
us or if we have to con over many pages that 
weary our eyes and distress our hearts. For 
the infinite Teacher in life’s great school is 
no human master, limited in knowledge and 
fallible in His method. It is God Himself 
who deigns to instruct us, the infinite Wis¬ 
dom, the eternal Love, the Power without 
weakness, whose designs cannot fail and 
whose arm is never shortened and who 
maketh all things work together unto good 
unto those who love Him. 


ON LEARNING HAPPINESS 


I T is, in a sense, a duty and it is one which 
we owe to ourselves as well as to others, 
to cultivate the fine art of keeping 
happy. It may surprise some readers to 
speak of keeping happy as an art that can 
be acquired, yet a bit of reflection will con¬ 
vince them that happiness can be learned and 
practiced. There are some who lack this fine 
art and who contrive to remain miserable 
even in the most singularly favorable sur¬ 
roundings for being happy. Others, who 
have every excuse, one would think, to feel 
entirely wretched, contrive to practice the fine 
art of happiness in the midst of misfortune. 
Being happy does not depend, then, on one’s 
outward circumstances. We can make a 
home for happiness within us no matter what 
storms may rave without. 

There was once, as we have heard, a lady 
who was a puzzle to her friends. Provi¬ 
dence had showered on her the most sin¬ 
gular gifts. She had a pleasant and happy 
home, an amiable, devoted husband, de¬ 
lightful children, good health and youth 
—in a word, all the things which are 

150 


On Learning Happiness 151 

commonly considered the very stuff out 
of which happiness is made. Yet, this good 
lady used from time to time to lock herself 
in her chamber and cry and cry for hours 
together. She seemed to delight in being 
miserable and had a perverse faculty of 
making herself wretched when, it seems, it 
would have been so easy for her to practice 
the art of keeping happy. We ourselves may 
have known people like this, who would per¬ 
sist in troubling themselves even when every¬ 
thing in the world seemed to conspire to 
make them joyful. 

Another lady that we knew, practiced the 
art of happiness with singular success under 
the most dreadfully difficult circumstances. 
She, too, had had a pleasant home, a devoted 
husband and a son and daughter who were 
the sunshine of her life. But the Lord 
suffered her to be tried as was Job of old. 
First, her husband was stricken by a linger¬ 
ing illness which ended by ruining his mind 
and left him a mere wreck of a man. Then, 
one after another, the son and daughter were 
taken from her, the one by a sudden death 
after an operation, the other by an acute 
disease which made her suffer intolerable 
agonies before her mother’s eyes. Last of 


152 On Learning Happiness 

all, the mother herself became a helpless 
cripple from rheumatism, imprisoned in a 
chair, denied the use of her limbs, in con¬ 
stant pain. 

It was a marvelous thing to see the happi¬ 
ness which lit and sparkled in her face as she 
sat with folded hands and waited for slow 
death to come. It was not mere resignation 
that irradiated her expression. It was actual 
happiness. She was one of the most cheerful 
persons you could meet. It made you cheery 
merely to look at her, she was such a consum¬ 
mate master of the art of happiness and could 
so practice it in spite of everything. It was 
worth going a long way merely to see her 
smile, and she was the most convincing object 
lesson that one’s happiness does not at all 
depend on outward things. 

Consider for a moment the respective 
influence of these two women. The one 
—she is dead long, long ago, and no harm 
can come from using her as an example 
—shed about her, on the many occasions 
when she indulged in this luxury of weep¬ 
ing, a general uneasiness and gloom. Every¬ 
one wondered what in the world she was 
crying for, and searched their recollection 
to see if they had done anything to her 


On Learning Happiness 153 

to make her cry. Her husband, poor soul, 
lived intermittently in a moist, unhealthy 
atmosphere and was, besides, suspected by 
his friends of being somehow very trying and 
exacting, or else why would his poor wife be 
always going off to weep. She cast a damper 
over the entire family, and no one knew when 
a fresh outburst of causeless grief would 
plunge the household in gloom. 

The mistress of the art of cheerfulness, on 
the contrary, set everyone who saw her, 
smiling. It was impossible not to feel 
ashamed of oneself for having ever yielded to 
despondency when one saw her beaming 
away like the image of happiness itself, in 
spite of her woes, her bereavements and the 
awful rheumatism which racked her night 
and day. People used to visit her, some¬ 
times, in a downhearted mood because some 
little troubles had been picking at them. 
When they saw her sparkling with cheerful¬ 
ness in the midst of her pain, they were 
charmed out of their ill-humor, and they kept 
cheerful for days afterwards from mere 
shame, seeing her so happy with her many 
sorrows. 

How can one acquire this fine art of happi¬ 
ness? Notice that happiness is quite distinct 


154 On Learning Happiness 

from pleasure, comfort, ease or self¬ 
gratification. Some of these things are really 
enemies to happiness. Pleasure is a sensation 
or an experience, happiness is a state of mind. 
To become and remain truly happy one must 
observe certain quite simple but very essential 
rules. The first of these is to be pious and at 
peace with God. There is an uneasiness in the 
depth of our soul which can only be allayed by 
being at peace with God and faithful in His 
service. The essential disquiet of the sinner 
lies deep below the surface and perhaps 
makes itself acutely felt only in moments of 
silence and of thought. Those who are 
hardened in sin grow unconscious of the cause 
of their disquiet. They cannot analyze the 
uneasiness which drives them to seek excite¬ 
ment, interests, occupation to distract them 
from this deep interior trouble. But the 
trouble is there, their soul has sickened unto 
death, and with a dead or dying soul who can 
be happy? 

But though this friendship and peace with 
God is the foundation of true happiness, 
something more is required, as is quite plain 
from the fact that many good, pious people 
seem scarcely to have acquired the art of 
being happy. What is this further accom- 


On Learning Happiness 155 

plishment? Is it not to be found in the prac¬ 
tice of looking on the bright side of things? 
Everything without exception which God 
allows to happen to us has its bright as well 
as its darker side. But the dark is unhappily 
often but too obtrusive, while the bright side 
requires looking for and needs some effort to 
discover. One must acquire the unvarying 
habit of looking always for the bright side of 
everything if one would learn and practice 
thoroughly the art of being happy. 

First, let us seriously convince ourselves 
that everything whatsoever has a bright side, 
worth looking for. This we can do quite 
easily in theory by considering that God’s 
overruling providence keeps hold of every 
detail of our lives and that nothing whatever 
can occur to us or to those we love or take 
an interest in, or to anyone else in the whole 
wide world besides, unless God has foreseen 
it and, for a reason worthy of His divine 
goodness and wisdom, has suffered it to come 
to pass. If God sees fit to allow a thing to 
happen, we surely can find good reasons for 
bearing it patiently and with joy. 

But this general persuasion is not enough in 
itself to make us actually happy. It is neces¬ 
sary for us to descend to particulars and to try 


156 On Learning Happiness 

to see in everything that happens to us, some¬ 
thing to be happy about. This will require 
some little practice and a determined perse¬ 
verance in looking always for the bright side 
of things—but it is worth a great deal of 
effort to get this cheerful outlook. Such a 
way of looking at life and at our fortunes 
transforms for us the whole face of the 
blessed earth. 

If you will take even the most untoward 
circumstances of your career, the most un¬ 
pleasant and trying happenings of your day 
and look at them intently with a view to dis¬ 
covering the bright side of each one, you will 
find in each some motive for being happy. 
They are all from the hand of God, gifts 
from His Divine Majesty. He has taken 
the trouble, according to our way of speak¬ 
ing, to arrange from all eternity that this 
thing should happen to us, and though we 
may not be able to see just what good He in¬ 
tends, still we may be sure that He who is 
all kindness and mercy must have some very 
blessed end in everything He does or suffers to 
occur. “May the most just, most high, and 
most amiable will of God be done and praised 
and exalted forever.” In such brief acts of 


On Learning Happiness 157 

conformity to the will of God one can find 
much peace and happiness. 

We cannot always discover what precise 
good God intends in the seeming evils He 
allows to come upon us. The reason may lie 
buried in the depths of His inscrutable provi¬ 
dence. All the ways of God are just and His 
judgments all are right, but they are not all 
clear and evident to our eyes, because we are 
clay and He is God. Yet, the more we confirm 
in ourselves the conviction that all that God 
allows to happen to us is for our good, and 
the stronger we make our faith in His kind 
providence, the more we shall be happy. 
Faith and hope and love of our infinite 
Father in heaven will make us happier the 
stronger they become, even though we under¬ 
stand nothing at all of what God is aiming 
at in our lives. It is enough to believe that 
all things come from Him, to hope in His 
kindness and promises, to love Him and kiss 
His hand even when He afflicts us. The 
happiest persons in the world are those who 
have a most vivid, realizing and active faith 
in, and hope in, and love of God. 

These dispositions are essential to happi¬ 
ness, but it will help a great deal to the prac- 


158 On Learning Happiness 

tice of this holy art of keeping happy to see 
in individual occurrences as much as we can 
that is cheerful, encouraging and good and 
to turn our backs so far as possible on the 
gloomy and discouraging aspects of things if 
we cannot help them or remedy them. Some 
persons have this faculty by nature, others 
are disposed always to take the contrary and 
gloomy view. We should ask ourselves how 
we are inclined by our disposition, whether 
to look at the bright side or the dark. Those 
who have a cheerful outlook need only to 
make it supernatural by seeing God’s hand 
in every occurrence. Those who are natur¬ 
ally gloomy must discipline themselves se¬ 
verely until they have trained their eyes to 
rest on the lights instead of the shadows. Be 
sure that everything lias a bright side, then 
set yourself to see it. 

This Christian philosophy of cheerfulness 
is marvelously illustrated in the lives of the 
saints. The nearer they came to God, the 
more their souls expanded with interior 
happiness; neither the severity of their 
penances nor^the^ realization of their defects 
and shortcomings which they saw most 
clearly in the light of God’s purity, nor the 
persecutions they suffered from without, nor 


On Learning Happiness 159 

the attacks of the devil, nor desolation within 
them could ever make them unhappy. Even 
in their deepest affliction there was a heart of 
calm and cheer. The innermost depths of 
their soul were never troubled because there 
the Holy Spirit dwelt and spread about Him 
light and calm. 

They had learned well, these great servants 
of God, the art of keeping happy. Their in¬ 
ward consolation and delight were quite inde¬ 
pendent of all exterior circumstances. They 
praised God for joys when He chose to send 
them, and these temporal consolations made 
them realize more keenly the joys of heaven. 
They praised Him for sorrows which made 
them partakers of the passion and sharers of 
the sweet wood of the Cross. They looked 
forever at the bright side of all things because 
this is God’s side and they wished to see with 
the eyes of God. Wise and happy shall we 
be if we learn from the saints the holy art 
of keeping happy. It is worth much labor 
and suffering to learn, for it lightens the 
heart and quickens the soul and gives us 
strength and swiftness to walk unswerving 
past both the joys and sorrows of earth to¬ 
ward the soon and endless happiness which 
is heaven. 


CATHOLIC HOSPITALS 


F EW lines of effort have shown more 
triumphantly the admirable efficiency 
of our Catholic Sisterhoods than has 
their work in hospitals. In this domain 
they have not only held their own with 
secular and state institutions but they have 
very far outdistanced them in many im¬ 
portant particulars. At the present time, 
there are in the United States and Canada 
upwards of six hundred and fifty Catholic 
hospitals and these afford, we are told, about 
half the entire bed space available in these 
countries. Four million patients pass 
through these institutions in a single year. 
This vast army of stricken and ailing folk 
come into the Catholic hospitals from every 
walk of life, with every color of belief or un¬ 
belief, some of them very apprehensive at 
the thought that they are about to put them¬ 
selves in the power of a religious denomina¬ 
tion which they have been taught from their 
childhood to distrust and fear. 

While the immense power of Catholic 
hospitals for relieving and healing human 
misery is beyond computing, the moral and 

160 


Catholic Hospitals 161 

spiritual influence of the hospital Sisters is 
similarly incalculable. Their very presence 
dispels bigotry. Their ministrations win 
good will. How many a hardened apostate 
or a confirmed unbeliever has felt his heart 
melt and his stony indifference dissolve before 
the unearthly charity of the hospital Sisters. 
The number of death-bed conversions, of in¬ 
stances of reawakened faith and renewed 
Catholic practice in patients who go out of 
the hospital helped or cured will be known 
only on judgment day. 

But more remarkable still, and less appre¬ 
ciated, is the service of Catholic hospitals in 
breaking down prejudice and confuting 
calumnies against the Church. Of the four 
million patients who yearly pass through our 
Catholic hospitals a great number are non- 
Catholics. In Catholic hospitals they are 
able to see with their own eyes and hear with 
their ears the charity of the Church in action. 
As time goes on, we shall realize even more 
than we do now, the possibilities that work 
in Catholic hospitals holds out, for healing 
the souls and curing the lives of men no less 
than their suffering bodies. 


WILL YOU? 


G P into the Public Library in your city. 
Take with you a short list of Cath¬ 
olic books of sufficient interest and 
importance to merit a place in any general 
library. Then consult the card catalogues of 
your Public Library and see how many of 
the excellent works you have listed are con¬ 
tained therein and available for the general 
public who resort thither for reading matter. 
You may be undecided whether to laugh or 
weep. Certainly you will marvel at the 
apathy of Catholics who come there day after 
day for books and who never think of calling 
for additions to the Catholic section. But, 
after all, what have you yourself ever done 
individually for the circulation of Catholic 
books through your own Public Library? 

It is really time that we ceased merely 
talking about the duties and opportunities 
of the laity in regard to Catholic literature 
and began doing something effective as indi¬ 
viduals if not as members of societies. The 
public libraries are a public service. All they 
wish is to secure books that will be used. If 
you really meant to use the city directory of 
Hong Kong or the Blue Book of Zanzibar— 
162 


Will You 


1 63 

supposing that such an interesting volume 
existed—and if a certain number of your 
friends intended to use it, so that it would be 
kept in circulation, the Public Library would 
gladly purchase the book. The appropria¬ 
tion for the library, the fund it receives to 
buy new books, depends often upon the num¬ 
ber of books circulated during the preceding 
year and the service rendered with the last 
appropriation. 

It is, therefore, a very simple matter to 
introduce Catholic books into the library. 
First make application in the usual way, get¬ 
ting a blank provided for that purpose and 
writing upon it the information required. 
This application is handed to the library at¬ 
tendant. You will be informed by mail when 
the book is purchased on your recommenda¬ 
tion, and then you owe it to yourself and to 
the library authorities to see to it that the 
book receives proper circulation. Get a cer¬ 
tain number of your friends to take out the 
book. Make sure that it is kept in circula¬ 
tion, at least for a time after it has been pur¬ 
chased. Then the librarian will be the more 
willing to buy still other books upon your 
recommendation. Will you do your part? 
Or will you procrastinate and forget? 


FAMILY PRAYER 


I N a memorable pastoral letter which the 
entire hierarchy of the United States 
once sent out to the faithful, there oc¬ 
curs a passage which the mothers and fathers 
of Catholic families should especially take to 
heart and put in practice: “We heartily 
commend,” says the pastoral, “the beautiful 
practice of family prayer. ‘Where there are 
two or three gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them’ (Matt, 
xvni, 20). If this is true of the faithful in 
general, it applies with particular meaning to 
those who are members of the same house¬ 
hold. The presence of Jesus will surely be a 
source of blessing to the home where parents 
and children unite to offer up prayer in com¬ 
mon. The spirit of piety which this custom 
develops will sanctify the bonds of family 
love and ward off the dangers which so often 
bring sorrow and shame. We appeal in this 
matter with special earnestness to young 
fathers and mothers, who have it in their 
power to mold the hearts of their children 
and train them betimes in the habit of 
prayer.” 


164 


Family Prayer 165 

It is to the latter part of this timely and 
moving exhortation that we should like 
especially to direct the attention of our 
readers. The young fathers and mothers, 
whose children are just growing up about 
their knees, these have surely every reason 
to heed the exhortation to family prayer and 
no excuse for disregarding it. Parents with 
a growing family are naturally anxious to do 
all they can to ensure the future happiness of 
their children. They are anxious lest their 
innocent little ones should fall a prey to the 
temptations and snares of the world. Family 
prayer, early begun and faithfully persevered 
in, is a specific against the temptations of the 
world. If the children are early accustomed 
to pray together and with their parents for 
the preservation of their youthful innocence, 
they will be safeguarded from evil. 

For still another reason young parents in 
particular should heed this admonition and 
establish the holy custom of family prayer in 
their households, because it is so easy to intro¬ 
duce the custom into the family circle when 
the children are still young and docile. If 
from the beginning they are accustomed 
never to omit the family prayers, recited to¬ 
gether at some set time in the evening, it will 


166 Family Prayer 

be easy to continue the pious practice until 
they are grown and flown. The beads are a 
very good devotion for family prayers in 
common. Or prayers selected from some 
favorite prayer-book may be used. We hope 
that every young mother and father under 
whose eyes these paragraphs may come will 
straightway begin the practice of family 
prayers. 


WANTED 


I N certain railway stations, one finds, 
conspicuously placed, a rack conveni¬ 
ently divided into some dozen compart¬ 
ments, perforated so that passers-by may see 
what is within. Over the rack is the signifi¬ 
cant inscription “Free Literature.” The 
,crowds of people who pass through the sta¬ 
tion, anticipating their need of something to 
read on the train, take a leaflet from the rack 
as they pass and peruse it curiously. Here is 
a ready means of disseminating ideas, and if 
one is to judge from the number of leaflets in 
the rack, someone appreciates the oppor¬ 
tunity and is keeping the compartments well 
replenished. 

Perhaps you may like to see who is making 
use of this excellent opportunity for publicity. 
Go up to the rack and examine the pamphlets 
and leaflets displayed there for free distribu¬ 
tion. What an array of intolerable trash, 
what a display of human gullibility! 

Alas! it is the new and eccentric sects that 
have sprung up out of the rank soil of re¬ 
ligious vagaries that use this public place to 


168 


Wanted 


advertise their wares. These odd folk 
are profuse with their literature at every 
opportunity. By mere reiteration they 
allure the uninstructed. But seldom or 
never is there even a page of Catholic 
reading in the midst of this intolerable deal 
of false doctrine. Yet what reason have we 
to think that the truth will not be at least as 
welcome as error? 

It would be a very easy thing for our So¬ 
dalities to undertake to supply such places 
with fitting Catholic leaflets and pamphlets. 
One can get these things at wholesale for 
very little. Not only the railroads, but 
stores, street cars, many public places where 
crowds gather and readers are to be found, 
lend themselves to the distribution of this 
literature of salvation. Mere good inten¬ 
tions unfulfilled will never supply these racks 
with free literature nor counteract the propa¬ 
ganda of the sects. Better even a few really 
practical and energetic apostles of the dis¬ 
tribution of reading matter explanatory of 
Catholic themes than an army of mere well- 
wishers without initiative or self-sacrifice. 
This is not a work to be postponed until the 
day after to-morrow. We want volunteers 
to-day to do this needed work of to-day. 


IN MISSIONARY DAYS 


W HEN old missionaries—those sturdy 
pioneers who went out into the 
wilderness to build up the Church 
of God in the North and West as the tides of 
settlers poured into the new lands—when 
these old missionaries grow reminiscent, how 
the tales they tell shame the soft sloth and 
tender caution of these degenerate days! 
Such a one was recalling, not long ago, the 
time when his charge covered nine counties, 
to-day divided among the territory of five 
dioceses. 

Summer and winter, on foot, by ox cart 
and carriage, on trains when they came, he 
made the rounds of his missions, finding 
among the people a self-sacrifice and good 
will that made his task light, despite all the 
physical hardships. They would walk huge 
distances to church when they heard the mis¬ 
sionary was coming. They would assemble 
in the chapel to read their prayers together 
the three Sundays of the month when he 
could not be there. They would trudge 
through storms to Mass and remain fasting 
until late in the evening on the chance of re- 

169 


170 In Missionary Days 

ceiving communion. They were hardy and 
enduring in the service of God. 

There was the woman and her daughter 
who came fifteen miles in the face of a driving 
blizzard that drove the fine snow into their 
faces and filled the very pores of their skin 
with pain. They came and they carried with 
them—let us record it with fitting exactness— 
three dozen eggs for the missionary and a 
loaf of home-made bread for their own nour¬ 
ishment when the bitter walk should be over. 
There was that other pair of faithful women, 
the one eighty-three, the other eighty-seven 
years old, who would fast until half-past 
seven in the evening to receive communion 
the day they knew the missionary would come. 
Their simple story is not without its dash of 
humor, for one of them—she of the four¬ 
score and seven years—having one day fasted 
in this manner, confided to the missionary 
when he came that she had smoked a bit of a 
pipe the day, as comfort to her old body for 
the bitter fast. She hoped it was no harm! 

Nor was the missionary less sturdy than his 
people. One day, losing his way in the bliz¬ 
zard, he fell by the railroad track exhausted, 
and grew stiff and speechless with the cold. 
He resigned his soul to death and was fast 


In Missionary Days 171 

going into a stupor when the rescuing party 
passed him by, unable as he was, to move or 
give a cry. Then they came back and found 
him, and carried him to the w r oodhouse, where 
for two hours they rubbed his frozen limbs 
with snow and kerosene until their rude skill 
brought him back to life. 

How easy our lot is, compared to such 
efforts and sufferings! The Catholics of 
those days prized their faith dearly and they 
were willing to pay dearly to practice and 
preserve it. Would that we all had faith and 
constancy like theirs! 


THE GOOD PEOPLE 


FTER strenuous years of effort for 



Catholic organization, it is delightful 


■*- to recall with grateful heart the vast 
multitude of good people with whom a kind 
Providence has lined one’s path. The recol¬ 
lection of their benign presences lightens the 
ways of memory. It is a quality of the good 
that they are unobtrusive, modest and even 
timid about their own virtues. They shun 
praise and observation. Wickedness of 
many sorts is obtrusive but goodness is gentle, 
humble and retiring. 

One has no need to inquire concerning the 
evil elements of society; their names are in the 
public press, or at least the names of many of 
their kind. The glare and the evil stench of 
their misdeeds afflict the air. Their shameless¬ 
ness is its own continual advertisement, and 
the bad fame of their doings runs on the 
breath of rumor. But the good go about their 
holy works in hidden ways, striving to conceal, 
so far as consorts with God’s glory, the good 
they do and never anxious that earthly praise 
shall follow them. Therefore the good are 
often hard to find. 


172 


The Good People 173 

Still, one who has much to do with Catholic 
societies, and especially with the Sodality of 
the Blessed Virgin, which draws to its com¬ 
pany by a sweet and hidden attraction the 
most interior and holy souls, is brought into 
such intimate association with the good as to 
be able to realize how much of inward worth 
and virtue is about in the ranks of the Church 
militant. The clergy and religious, the young 
men and maidens, the older folk who have 
borne the burden of many days and the heat 
thereof, the married and the single, how vast 
a sum of goodness the Church can offer up 
to God! 

It is the charm of these hidden souls that 
they are in quite blissful unconsciousness of 
their own goodness, and render heroic service 
to God with the honest conviction that they 
are doing nothing whatever, out of the or¬ 
dinary. Priests, Sisters, Brothers; mothers 
of families who are martyrs to their duties, 
fathers who go through the hot blast of this 
world’s wickedness unscathed, and feed their 
little flock as Joseph provided for the home 
of Nazareth; sons and daughters whose life 
is given uncomplainingly and almost without 
consciousness of the greatness of their sacri¬ 
fice to the comfort and support of a parent 


174 The Good People 

made querulous by helpless age—bless you 
all, holy and simple folk of God! it is such 
as you, gone to heaven and amazed at the 
greatness of your reward, whom the Church 
lovingly remembers in the feast of all the 
saints! 


THE HEART OF WORSHIP 


D EVOTION to the Blessed Sacrament 
is the greatest of all devotions, and 
this adorable Eucharist is the heart 
of all Catholic worship. 

Non-Catholics are sometimes astonished at 
the sacrifices which even very poor parishes 
will sometimes make to erect good churches 
and to fit them out with all the seemly ap¬ 
purtenances of divine worship. They won¬ 
der that the church is put up and finished 
even before a fit residence has been found for 
the parish priest, before other and, to their 
mind, more needed accommodations for par¬ 
ish work are provided. These persons can¬ 
not, of course, understand the motive of this 
haste to provide a fit dwelling for the Blessed 
Sacrament. They do not appreciate the 
presence of that heavenly Guest for whom a 
resting-place must be provided before any 
other need, however pressing, can have 
attention. 

So, too, it astonishes those who are not of 
our faith, to see the crowds who come to some 
city churches to visit the Blessed Sacrament. 
While other churches are deserted from 
service to service, the Catholic churches and 
chapels are seldom at any hour without some 
175 


176 The Heart of Worship 

who kneel in silent adoration before that 
tabernacle which houses the Most High made 
little for our love. One sees men uncovering 
their heads as they pass before the churches 
where the Blessed Sacrament is kept; in many 
ways the faithful keep up an interminable 
succession of little signs of their great devo¬ 
tion to the Holy Eucharist. 

The crusade of the Knights and Ladies of 
the Blessed Sacrament is meant to systematize 
and intensify this devotion. There is no 
question here of joining another society or 
of taking on oneself new obligations. One 
who joins in the crusade merely makes a fer¬ 
vent resolve to be in all things most observant 
of devotion to the Eucharist, and in particu¬ 
lar to pay our heavenly Guest that service 
which He most greatly craves, of receiving 
Him at least weekly and if possible much 
oftener into our hearts. There is also the 
firm resolve to induce others to engage in the 
crusade and to make and keep the same holy 
purposes. It is no wonder that a movement 
so congenial to the spirit of devotion of all 
good Catholics is growing and spreading here 
and abroad. The wonder is that anyone who 
has heard of the crusade has failed to send 
his name for the Roll of Honor. 


CLOSER 


O NE curious result of the progress of 
invention is to have made the world 
only a large town, and the human 
race at last fellow-citizens. Every increase 
in the speed of travel, every new method of 
the more rapid communication of thought, 
has brought all mankind closer and closer 
together and made the earth a smaller and 
smaller place of abode. In consequence, na¬ 
tions and peoples have become more and 
more sociable, have perforce got nearer and 
nearer together in thought and sympathy as 
well as in space and time. The pace of inven¬ 
tion has speeded up to such an extent, the 
rapidity of travel and the ease of sending 
news bids fair to increase so very greatly in 
the not distant future, that soon the poles 
will be nearer together, so far as community 
of thought and feeling are concerned, than, 
for instance, the east and west sides of Lon¬ 
don were in the Victorian era, or than Brook¬ 
lyn and the Bronx seem to-day. 

This constant increase in nearness of ap¬ 
proach has had the further effect of making 
one nation, one class of persons, one locality 
177 


Closer 


178 

more and more entangled in a community of 
interests and welfare with all others. In 
simpler days a city which was three thousand 
miles from another was to all intents and 
purposes almost on another star, and could 
afford quite to ignore the interests and needs 
and trials of men ai\d women who lived so far 
away. But to-day no city is far enough from 
any other city to be able to afford to ignore, 
even from the standpoint of its own selfish 
interests, the affairs of that other city. 

Some years ago the news thrilled about the 
world that a certain Austrian archduke and 
his wife had been shot in cold blood by an 
assassin. A momentary interest was stirred 
in the nations. How many of the millions 
who read that item in the press imagined for 
an instant that with the murder of these two 
was bound up irrevocably the deaths of ten 
millions of men on all the battlefields of the 
Great War; that plague and famine and pes¬ 
tilence and fire were to waste some of the fair¬ 
est, the most distant as well as the nearer 
parts of Europe; that the boundaries of na¬ 
tions were to be altered, their allegiances 
changed, their governments to fall and rise, 
because in a distant land a man and a woman 
to whom they seemed bound by no ties, whose 


Closer 


179 

fate in no calculable way seemed intertwined 
with theirs, met a cruel death? But that fire¬ 
brand kindled the Great War. Ten million 
men have died in logical consequence from 
that bloody deed. The farthest generations* 
will feel the ineradicable results of a crime so* 
distant and apparently so indifferent to them. 

So, we may hear the mutterings and pre¬ 
monitions of a great storm, the gathering 
dissatisfaction of men who are hungry and 
cold. To us, it may appear that these threat- 
enings of revolt are as insignificant as the 
troubles of another planet. But it is not so. 
Whatever happens anywhere in the world is 
likely to travel in its consequences to our very 
doors and with the speed of rumor. For we 
now are all citizens of a worldwide city, and 
whatever happens to any of our fellows hap¬ 
pens, so to say, at our doorstep. 


AN EFFICIENT MEANS 


I T is quite astonishing what an unanimity 
of sentiment exists among Catholics, 
both clergy and people, as to the need 
of meeting in some more effective way than 
we have done in the past, the new conditions 
which have come upon us. One hears on 
every side remarks that there must be more 
sociability in our parishes, that we must do 
more for our young people, that the neglected 
children must be taught their catechism, that 
the interests of Catholic literature must be 
promoted, that the missions must receive 
more aid, that culture and Catholic refine¬ 
ment must be spread more widely, that we 
must organize more effectively for Catholic 
parish action. 

The chorus of assent has become almost 
monotonous. But when it comes to deter¬ 
mining what is to be done to meet this ad¬ 
mitted need, the lack of any definite plan is 
sometimes no less remarkable. What we 
must do is quite clear to everyone. How we 
shall do it is a bewildering problem to the 
great majority. On the other hand, nothing 
can be clearer than the fact that our success 
i So 


r An Efficient Means 181 

In meeting these needs must depend in great 
measure on the practical nature of the means 
adopted. Hitherto the tendency has been to 
meet conditions by local and unco-ordinated 
organization, the invention of the moment, 
to multiply societies, to duplicate activities, 
until the very number of our organizations 
has reduced us to a disorganized condition, 
and the variety of societies has made us 
lonely. Is it not time to unite on certain clear 
and unified methods of doing the work that is 
before us? Does not the time call for sys¬ 
tematic and co-ordinated effort? Shall we 
ever succeed in the present way of bolting 
ahead without relation to what is being done 
in other places? Will widespread and na¬ 
tional needs ever be met by local and discon¬ 
nected means? 

The Sodality is everywhere. It appeals to 
everyone, if only it is properly explained. It 
embraces in its membership all classes and 
ages and both sexes and welds them into a 
fellowship without destroying the autonomy 
of any element. It can join parishes together 
while respecting their individual activities and 
interests. It is supernatural yet actively 
social, it is flexible yet strong. It can work 
in cities, in parishes, in the nation. It can 


182 An Efficient Means 

take up any good work which is not being 
effectively done by any other society, and do 
it in the name and for the honor of the 
Blessed Mother of God. 

When our people have practically under¬ 
stood the possibilities of the Sodality they 
will find that many of their problems of or¬ 
ganization are answered. Under the banner 
of Mary we can restore all things in Christ. 


THE PIETY OF LAY FOLK 


I T is well to call attention from time to 
time, to the mind of the Church con¬ 
cerning the piety of the laity. In too 
many quarters there is an assumption that 
not much is expected of those who are neither 
called to the priesthood nor to the religious 
life, and who only form part of the general 
faithful. A very ordinary degree of good¬ 
ness is often all that is expected of them. If 
they go to communion once a month, say 
their prayers at night and in the morning, 
give to charity, and do nothing much out of 
the way, they are considered to have pretty 
well fulfilled everything that can be looked 
for from them. This is a too-commonly ac¬ 
cepted view, but it is very far from being the 
mind of the Church concerning the laity. 

That solicitous mother will never be satis¬ 
fied with so low a standard for her children. 
While her demands made under pain of grave 
sin are very moderate and very easily ful¬ 
filled, her desires for the sanctification of all 
her children are wide and great indeed. The 
whole spiritual organization of the Church is 
for the sanctification of the laity. For them 
183 


184 The Piety of Lay Folk 

parishes are multiplied, priests are ordained, 
bishops consecrated. For them the Blessed 
Sacrament is reserved in thousands of 
churches in every region of the earth. For 
them sermons are preached, sacraments ad¬ 
ministered, schools established, books written. 
The army of the Church is forever going 
forth, from the rising of the sun to the setting 
thereof, for the sanctification no less than the 
salvation of the laity. 

The Church’s desires for the holiness of 
the ordinary Christian are without bounds. 
Our late Holy Father Pius X declared to us 
that it is the wish of the Pope, the wish of 
the Church, the desire of the Sacred Heart 
of Christ, that all the laity who can do so 
should receive Holy Communion very fre¬ 
quently and if possible every day. With daily 
communion, what degree of holiness does not 
the Church hope for, even in hidden and 
ordinary souls? So also do the efforts of the 
Church to encourage among her children 
frequent prayer, the practice of spiritual re¬ 
treats, the use of ejaculatory prayers, the 
saying of the beads, the making of mental 
prayer—all the many practices of devotion to 
which she has attached rich indulgences to 
allure the faithful to their frequent use— 


The Piety of Lay Folk 185 

show how much she wishes and hopes for 
even from the rank and file of the faithful. 

Those who have the care of souls and those 
who are training in our schools the coming 
generation of Catholics, will do well to fix 
their standards of lay piety very high. 
Where much is expected of the laity they will 
do much for God. Where only a little is 
expected of them they are likely to be content 
with doing only a very little. 


A BOOK A YEAR 


“ T\ UY a Book a Year!” would be a capi- 

II tal device for Catholics to write 
above their doorways. “Buy a Book 
a Month” would serve still better for those 
who are more advanced in zeal and gener¬ 
osity. Persuade yourself and your neighbor 
to carry into effect these terse and pithy mot¬ 
toes, and you have gone far toward the actual 
endowment of Catholic letters. 

There is a vast deal of warm, commenda¬ 
tory talk about Catholic literature. But when 
it comes to the actual business of getting the 
books about, to buy a book a month or even 
one a year is infinitely more practical and 
effective than merely to talk for a month or a 
year about what ought to be done to circulate 
Catholic books. 

Catholic books, like any other books, are 
made of paper, printed with ink, bound in 
cloth. Each of these items, together with 
the labor involved in setting the type, print¬ 
ing the pages, binding and selling the book, 
costs money just as bread does or meat or 
butter or spinach. In other words, there is a 
monetary and a material side to the making 
186 


A Book a Year 187 

of Catholic books which is as much a matter 
of business as the making of hams. 

It is too bad to put the matter thus baldly. 
What we are aiming at, however, is to bring 
home to the gentle reader forcibly, if crudely, 
that just as it would be quite a useless bit of 
philanthropy to manufacture ham or bread 
unless there were consumers who would buy 
thereof, and pay therefor, and take home and 
give to their children and their friends, so 
also it will be quite useless for Catholic 
authors laboriously to write, for Catholic 
publishers to print, and for Catholic book¬ 
sellers to have on sale, a proper variety of 
Catholic books, unless Catholics will buy 
them, take them home and give them to their 
friends and family to read after they have 
read them themselves. 

At the present time, most Catholic books 
are bought by priests and sisters, who give 
some of them away to the laity. This is not 
as it should be. These books are food for 
the soul as necessary as meat and bread are 
food for the body. Why wait for someone 
to give you what you so need and so easily 
can afford to buy for yourself? Make this 
brief phrase your motto: “Buy a book a 
month,” or at least: “Buy a book a year.” 


THE PATRONS OF ART 


T HERE is much spoken these days 
concerning the need of Catholic let¬ 
ters to interpret to the age the doc¬ 
trines and principles of the Church. So, also, 
does one hear from time to time the cry for 
more truly Catholic art and architecture, 
painting, sculpture. Eloquent things are said 
and written upon the vast possibilities for 
good that lie in all these things, and at the 
same time there is no lack of groaning at the 
scant supply of good pictures, good books, 
good statues which may tell to those without 
no less than to those within the Church, of 
the loveliness of Catholic teachings and 
traditions. 

What many of these enthusiastic well- 
wishers to Catholic art forget, is the material 
and practical side of the question they raise 
by their good desires and fond regrets con¬ 
cerning the popularity and plentifulness of 
Catholic writing, painting, sculpture. It is 
well to wish for Catholic writers, sculptors, 
painters, who can renew the great traditions 
of the Catholic past and give this generation 
what other generations possessed—the lovely 


The Patrons of Art 189 

and harmonious expression of the Faith in 
forms of imperishable art. 

But one must not forget that the credit for 
the great achievements of the past is due not 
only to the talent of the great Catholic artists 
of old, but to the liberal patronage they re¬ 
ceived from the Catholics of their time. Not 
merely talent or even genius is required for 
the creation of a body of great art. There 
must also be at hand the patronage which 
will reward the artist, the munificence which 
will support him in his labors, the material 
rewards and kind applause which will cheer 
and encourage him in the production of im¬ 
mortal works. The age of the Renaissance 
was the golden time of Catholic artists. It 
was also the time when beyond all others 
there was at hand the most generous patron¬ 
age of the arts. The popes, the great mo¬ 
nastic orders, the convents, the churches vied 
with one another in giving commissions for 
paintings, statues, mosaics, which were well 
rewarded, not only in gratitude and apprecia¬ 
tion, but by material wealth, ease, and the 
wherewithal to continue and complete the 
artist’s exacting labors. 

The duty of thus encouraging Catholic 
artists, whether they be poets, painters, 


190 The Patrons of Art 

sculptors, has not ceased; it has merely passed 
to other hands. The popes, once the most 
royal patrons of Catholic art, have ceased 
to possess the means for such munificence. 
But the Catholic people, increasingly wealthy 
and leisured, should take up the task which 
has become impossible to any but themselves. 
It is good to build churches, good to give 
alms, good to support the missions. But to 
buy Catholic paintings, statues, books is like¬ 
wise an act of enlightened zeal most pleasing 
to God and most effective to promote the 
interests of His Church. So long as the well- 
to-do amongst us neglect this duty they are 
missing a great part of the work God means 
them to do for the Church and for society. 
It is the laity nowadays who must be patrons 
of Catholic letters and art. 


THE PEOPLE 


T the bottom of things the supporters 



of states, the strength of enterprises, 


■*“ the sinew of armies, the muscle of 
trade, the resource of nations and the wealth 
of cities, are the plain people. They are of 
the ranks of those of whom Abraham Lin¬ 
coln, who himself was sprung from their loins 
and knew them, said, that God must love the 
common folk for He made so many of them. 
And we ourselves, if we are wise, will also 
love the people, the simple many who are 
beloved by God. 

It is they who are now and always have 
been a great support and strength of God’s 
Church. From them come in great measure 
the offerings which sustain her worship and 
her good works. They give their sons and 
daughters to be her ministers and her conse¬ 
crated virgins. It is they who readily support 
her literature, help her enterprises, on whom 
she can depend to answer any serious appeal 
she makes to them in the name of God, 
whether their means are great or small. 

They are a conservative element in society, 
the ballast of the ship of state. They incline 


192 The People 

to be home-lovers, rich in children, strong in 
family affection, possessed of an obscure and 
dogged fidelity to duty which makes them 
bear heroically all reverses and persevere 
indomitably, through weary years, the 
mothers in the vexing duties of home, the 
fathers in wearing toil. 

It is these people who are the assets of 
every true democracy. They are the demos, 
the people, the bedrock on which government 
is built. They take kindly to the true Faith. 
Given the right instruction and encourage¬ 
ment they would in great part become Cath¬ 
olics. They are growing constantly stronger, 
better informed, more capable of standing up 
for their own interests. The balance of 
political power is increasingly in their hands. 

If the Church can but come into her own 
among the common people she need no longer 
fear the privileged and the great. If democ¬ 
racy means anything it means the rule of the 
many. If the many are to rule, and if they 
can be brought where they belong, into the 
bosom of the Church, both Church and State 
will be secure. 


Printed by Benzigee Brothers, New York 


BOOKS OF DOCTRINE, INSTRUCTION, 
DEVOTION, MEDITATION, BIOGRAPHY, 
NOVELS, JUVENILES, ETC. 


PUBLISHED BY 

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1 


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S 


II. DEVOTION, MEDITATION, SPIRITUAL READING, 
PRAYER-BOOKS 


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DEVOTION TO THE SACRED 
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Roche, S.J. Paper, *0.12. 

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See “Following of Christ.” 
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Grou, S.J. 2 vols. net, $3.00. 
INTRODUCTION TO A DEVOUT 
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LITTLE ALTAR BOYS’ MANUAL. 
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PRAYERS FOR OUR DEAD. Mc¬ 
Grath. Cloth, $0.35; im. leather, 
$0.75. 


4 


PRISONER OF LOVE. Prayer-Book 
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$2.25; Am. seal, limp, gold edges, 
$3-25. 

PRIVATE RETREAT FOR RELIG¬ 
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REFLECTIONS FOR RELIGIOUS. 
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REJOICE IN THE LORD. Prayer- 
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ROSARY, THE CROWN OF MARY. 
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RULES OF LIFE FOR THE PASTOR 
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SERAPHIC GUIDE, THE. $1.25. 

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SHORT VISITS TO THE BLESSED 
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THOUGHTS ON THE RELIGIOUS 
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VIGIL HOUR, THE. Ryan, S.J. 
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YOUNG MAN’S GUIDE, THE. 
Prayer-Book by Father Lasance. 
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$1.50. Im. leather, limp, red edges, 
$1.90; gold edges, $2.25. Real leather, 
limp, gold edges, $3.25. 

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Garesche', S.J. net , $1.50. 

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net , $1.50. 

YOUR ^SOUL'S SALVATION. 
Garesche, S.J. net , $1.50. 


5 


III. THEOLOGY, LITURGY, HOLY SCRIPTURE, PHILOSOPHY, 
SCIENCE, CANON LAW 


ALTAR PRAYERS. Edition A: Eng¬ 
lish and Latin, net , $1.75. Edition B: 
German-English -Latin, net , $2.00. 

AMERICAN PRIEST, THE. Schmedt. 
net , $1.50. 

BAPTISMAL RITUAL. 12100. net 
$1.50. 

BENEDICENDA. Schulte. net , $2.75. 

BURIAL RITUAL. Cloth, net , $1.50; 
sheepskin, net , $2.50; black morocco, 
net , $3.50. 

CASES OF CONSCIENCE. Slater, 
S.J. 2 vols. net , $6.00. 

CHRIST’S TEACHING CONCERN¬ 
ING PIVORCE. Gigot. net , <j$2.75. 

CLERGYMAN’S HANDBOOK OF 
LAW. Scanlon, net , $2.25. 

COMBINATION RECORD FOR 
SMALL PARISHES, net , $8.00. 

COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS. 
Berry, net , $3.50. 

COMPENDIUM JURIS CANONICI 
AD USUM CLERI ET SEMINARI- 
ORUM HU JUS REGIONIS ACCOM- 
MODATUM. Smith, net , TO2.50. 

COMPENDIUM JURIS REGULAR- 
IUM. Bachofen. net , IH3.50. 

COMPENDIUM SACR/E LITURGLE. 
Wapelhorst, O.F.M. net , ^$3.00. 

CONSECRANDA. Schulte, net , $2.75. 

ECCLESL 4 STICAL DICTIONARY. 
Thein. 4to, half mor. net , $6.50. 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE 
STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIP¬ 
TURES. Gigot. net , W4.00. 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE 
STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIP¬ 
TURES. Abridged edition. Gigot. 
net , 1i$2.7$. 

HOLY BIBLE, THE. Large type, handy 
size. Cloth, $2.25. 

JESUS LIVING IN THE PRIEST. 
Millet, S.J.-Bysne. net ,% 3.2s. 

MANUAL OF HOMILETICS AND 
CATECHETICS. Schuech-Lueber- 
mann. net , $2.25. 

MANUAL OF MORAL THEOLOGY. 


MARRIAGE RITUAL. Cloth, gilt 
edges, net , $1.50; sheepskin, gilt 
edges, net , $2.50; real morocco, gilt 
edges, net , $3.50. 

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND MODERN 
HIGHER CRITICISM. Gigot. 
Paper, net , f$o.i5. 

MORAL PRINCIPLES AND MED¬ 
ICAL PRACTICE. Coppens, S.J. 
net , $1.50. 

OUTLINES OF DOGMATIC THEOL¬ 
OGY. Hunter, S.J. 3 vols., net , $7.50. 

OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY, 
FROM ABRAHAM TO OUR LORD. 
Gigot. net , ^$2.75. 

OUTLINES OF NEW TESTAMENT 
HISTORY. Gigot. net , W2.75. 

PASTORAL THEOLOGY. Stang. net, 
W2.25. 

PENAL LEGISLATION IN THE NEW 
CODE OF CANON LAW. Ayrinhac, 
S.S. net , $3.00. 

PHILOSOPHIA MORALI, DE. Russo, 
S.J. Half leather, net , $2.75. 

PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE. 
McHugh, O.P. net , $0.60. 

PRAXIS SYNODALIS. Manuale Sy- 
nodi Dioccsanae ac Provincialis Cele- 
brandae. net , $1.00. 

QUESTIONS OF MORAL THEOLOGY. 
Slater, S.J. net , $3.00. 

RITUALE COMPENDIOSUM. Cloth, 
net , $1.25; seal, net , $2.00. 

SANCTUARY BOYS’ ILLUSTRATED 
MANUAL. McCai.len, S.S. net, 
X$i.oo. 

SHORT HISTORY OF MORAL THE¬ 
OLOGY. Slater, S.J. net , $0.75. 

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE 
STUDY OF THE OLD TESTA¬ 
MENT. Gigot. Part I. net , *$2.75. 
Part II net , T$3-25- 

SPIRAGO’S METHOD OF CHRIS¬ 
TIAN DOCTRINE. Messmer. net , 
$2.50. 

TEXTUAL CONCORDANCE OF THE 
HOLY SCRIPTURES. Williams. 
net , $5.75. 

WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE 
FOR SCIENCE. Brennan. net, 
$1.So- 


Slater, S.J. 2 vols. net , $8.00. 

MARRIAGE LEGISLATION IN THE 
NEW CODE. Ayrinhac, S.S. net , 

$2.50. 

IV. SERMONS 


CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. Bono- 
mf.lli, D.D.-Byrne. 4 vols., net , $9.00. 

EIGHT-MINUTE SERMONS. De- 
mouy. 2 vols., net , $4.00. 

HOMILIES ON THE COMMON OF 
SAINTS. Bonomelli-Byrne. 2 vols., 
net , $4.50. 


HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES AND 
GOSPELS. Bonomelli-Byrne. 4 vols., 
net , $9.00. 

MASTER’S WORD, THE, IN THE 
EPISTLES AND GOSPELS. Flynn. 
2 vols., net , $4.00. 


6 


OUTLINES OF SERMONS FOR 
YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG 
WOMEN. Schuen-Wirth. net , $3.50. 
POPULAR SERMONS ON THE CAT¬ 
ECHISM. Bamberg-Thurston, S.J. 
3 vols., net , $8.50. 


PULPIT SKETCHES. 

Lambert. 

net , 

$2.25. 

SERMONS. 

Canon 

Sheehan. 

net , 

$3.00. 

SERMONS 

FOR 

CHILDREN’S 

MASSES. 

Frassinetti-Lings. 

net , 


SERMONS FOR THE SUNDAYS 
AND CHIEF FESTIVALS OF THE 
ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR. Pott- 
geisser, S.J. 2 vols., net , $5.00. 
SERMONS ON OUR BLESSED LADY. 
Flynn, net , $2.50. 

SERMONS ON THE BLESSED SAC¬ 


RAMENT. Scheurer-Lasance. net . 
$2.50. 

SERMONS ON THE CHIEF CHRIS¬ 
TIAN VIRTUES. Hunolt-Wirth 
net , $ 2 . 75 . 

SERMONS ON THE DUTIES OF 
CHRISTIANS. Hunolt-Wirth. 
net , $2.75. 

SERMONS ON THE FOUR LAST 
THINGS. Hunolt-Wirth. net , $ 2 . 75 . 

SERMONS ON THE SEVEN DEADLY 
SINS. Hunolt-Wirth. net , $2.75. 

SERMONS ON THE VIRTUE AND 
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. 
Hunolt-Wirth. net , $2.75. 

SERMONS ON THE MASS,THE SAC¬ 
RAMENTS AND THE SACRA- 
MENTALS. Flynn, net , $ 2.7 5 . 

SHORT SERMONS FOR LOW 
MASSES. Schouppe, S.J. net ,% 2.25. 


V. HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, HAGIOLOGY, TRAVEL 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. IGNA¬ 
TIUS LOYOLA. O’Connor, S.J. 
net , $1.75. 

BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
Shah an. net , $3.00. 

CAMILLUS DE LELLIS. By a 
Sister of Mercy, net . $1. 75 - 

CHILD’S LIFE OF ST. JOAN OF 
ARC. Mannix. net , $1.50. 

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL SYS¬ 
TEM IN THE UNITED STATES. 
Burns, C.S.C. net , $2.50. 

HISTORY OF ECONOMICS. Dewe. 
net , $2.00. 

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC 
CHURCH. Brueck. 2 vols., net , 

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC 
CHURCH. Businger-Brennan. net , 

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC 
CHURCH. Businger-Brennan. 

HISTORY 7 OF THE PROTESTANT 
REFORMATION. Cobbett-Gas- 
quet. net , $1.25. 

HISTORY OF THE MASS. O’Brien. 
net , $2.00. 

HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH IN 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
Kempf, S.J. net , $2.75. 

LIFE OF ST. MARGARET MARY 
ALACOQUE. Illustrated. Bougaud. 
net , $2.75. _ _ - 

LIFE OF CHRIST. Businger-Bren¬ 
nan. Illustrated. Half morocco, gilt 
edges, net , $15.00. 

LIFE OF CHRIST. Illustrated. Bus- 
inger-Mullett. net , $3- 50 - 


LIFE OF CHRIST. Cochem. net , 

LIFE 2 5 OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 
Genelli, S.J. net , $1.25. 

LIFE OF MADEMOISELLE LE 
GRAS, net , $1.25. 

LIFE OF POPE PIUS X. Illustrated. 
net , $ 3 - 5 °. 

LIFE OF SISTER ANNE KATHAR¬ 
INE EMMERICH. McGowan, 
O.S.A. net , $2.50. 

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 
Rohner. net , $1.25. 

LITTLE LIVES OF THE SAINTS 
FOR CIHLDREN. Berthold. net , 
$1.25. 

LITTLE PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE 
SAINTS. With 400 illustrations. 
net , $2.00. 

LIVES OF THE SAINTS. Butler. 
net , $1.25. 

LOURDES. Clarke, S.J. net , $1.25. 

MARY THE QUEEN. By a Relig¬ 
ious. net , $0.75. 

MIDDLE AGES, THE. Shahan. net , 
$3.00. 

NAMES THAT LIVE IN CATHOLIC 
HEARTS. Sadlier. net , $1.25. 

OUR OWN ST. RITA. Corcoran, 
O.S.A. net , $1.50. 

PATRON SAINTS FOR CATHOLIC 
YOUTH. Mannix. 3 vols. Each, 
net , $1.25. 

PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 
With nearly 400 illustrations and over 
600 pages, net , $5.00. 

POPULAR LIFE OF ST. TERESA. 
L’abbe Joseph, net , $1.25. 


7 


PRINCIPLES ORIGIN AND ES¬ 
TABLISHMENT OF THE CATH¬ 
OLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THE 
UNITED STATES. Burns, C.S.C. 
net , $2.50. 

RAMBLES IN CATHOLIC LANDS. 
Barrett, O.S.B. Illustrated, net , 
$ 3 - 5 °- 

ROMA. Pagan Subterranean and Mod¬ 
ern Rome in Word and Picture. By 
Rev. Albert Kuhn, O.S.B., D.D. 
Preface by Cardinal Gibbons. 617 
pages. 744 illustrations. 48 full-page 
inserts, 3 plans of Rome in colors. 

x 12 inches. Red im. leather, gold 
side, net , $15*00. 

ROMAN CURIA AS IT NOW EXISTS. 
Martin, S.J. net , $2.50. 

ST. ANTHONY. Ward, net , $1.25. 


ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. Dubois, 
S.M. net , $1.25. 

ST. JOAN OF ARC. Lynch, S.J. Illus¬ 
trated. net ,$ 2.75. 

SAINTS AND PLACES. By 
John Ayscough. Illustrated, net , 
$3.00. 

SHORT LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 
Donnelly, net , $0.90. 

STORY OF JESUS SIMPLY TOLD 
FOR THE YOUNG, THE. Mul- 
holland. net , $1.00. 

STORY OF THE DIVINE CHILD. 
Told for Children. Lings, net , $0.73. 

STORY OF THE ACTS OF THE 
APOSTLES. Lynch, S.J. Illus¬ 
trated. net , $2.75. 

WOMEN OF CATHOLICITY. Sad- 
lier. net , $1.25. 


VI. JUVENILES 


FATHER FINN’S BOOKS. 

Each, net , $1.50. 

FACING DANGER. 

HIS LUCKIEST YEAR. A Sequel to 
“ Lucky Bob.” 

LUCKY BOB. 

PERCY WYNN; OR, MAKING A 
BOY OF HIM. 

TOM PLAYFAIR; OR, MAKING A 
START 

CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT; OR, HOW 
THE PROBLEM WAS SOLVED. 

HARRY DEE; OR, WORKING IT 
OUT. 

ETHELRED PRESTON; OR, THE 
ADVENTURES OF A NEW¬ 
COMER. 

THE BEST FOOT FORWARD; 
AND OTHER STORIES. 

CUPID OF CAMPION. 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME, AND 
WHAT CAME OF IT. 

THE FAIRY OF THE SNOWS. 

THAT OFFICE BOY. 

HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEAR¬ 
ANCE. 

MOSTLY BOYS. SHORT STORIES. 

FATHER SPALDING’S BOOKS. 
Each, net , $1.50. 

HELD IN THE EVERGLADES. 

AT THE FOOT OF THE SAND¬ 
HILLS. 

THE CAVE BY THE BEECH 
FORK. 

THE SHERIFF OF THE BEECH 
FORK 

THE CAMP BY COPPER RIVER. 

THE RACE FOR COPPER 
ISLAND. 


THE MARKS OF THE BEAR 

CLAWS. 

THE OLD MILL ON THE WITH- 

ROSE 

THE SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER. 

ADVENTURE WITH THE APACHES. 

Ferry, net , $0.75. 

ALTHEA. Nirdlinger. net , $1.00. 
AS GOLD IN THE FURNACE. 

Copus, S.J. net , $1.50. 

AS TRUE AS GOLD. Manndc. net , 
$0.75. 

AT THE FOOT OF THE SAND¬ 
HILLS. Spalding, S.J. net , $1.50. 
BELL FOUNDRY. Schaching, net, 

$0.75. 

BERKLEYS, THE. Wight. net, 

$0.75. 

BEST FOOT FORWARD, THE. Finn, 

S.J. net , $1.50. 

BETWEEN FRIENDS. Aumerle. 
net , $1.00. 

BISTOURI. Melandri. net , $0.75. 
BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE. 

Taggart, net , $0.75. 

BOB O’LINK. Waggaman. net , $0.75. 
BROWNIE AND I. Aumerle. net , 
$ 1 . 00 . 

BUNT AND BILL. Mulholland. 

net , $0.75. 

BY BRANSCOME RIVER. Taggart, 

net , $0.75. 

CAMP BY COPPER RIVER. Spaed- 
ing, S.J. net , $1.50. 

CAPTAIN TED. Waggaman. net, 
$1.00. 

CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK 
Spalding, SJ, net , $1.50. 

CHARLIE CHITTYWICK. Bearne; 
S.J. net , $1.50. 


8 


CHILDREN OF CUPA. Mannix. net , 
$0.75. 

CHILDREN OF THE LOG CABIN. 

Delaware, net , $1.00. 

CLARE LORAINE. “Lee.” net , 
$1.00. 

CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT. Finn, S.J. 
net , $1.50. 

CUPA REVISITED. Mannix. net , 
$0.75. 

CUPID OF CAMPION. Finn, S.J. 
net , $1.50. 

DADDY DAN. Waggaman. net , 
So. 75- 

DEAR FRIENDS. Nirdlinger. net , 
$ 1 . 00 . 

DIMPLING’S SUCCESS. Mulhol- 
iand. net , $0.75. 

ETHELRED PRESTON. Finn, S.J. 
net , $1.50. 

EVERY-DAY GIRL, AN. Crowley. 

net , $0.75. 

FACING DANGER. Finn, S.J. net , 
$1.50. 

FAIRY OF THE SNOWS. Finn, S.J. 
net , $1.50. 

FINDING OF TONY. Waggaman. 
net , $1.50. 

FIVE BIRDS IN A NEST. Delamare. 
net , $1.00. 

FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. By a 
Religious, net , $1.00. 

FLOWER OF THE FLOCK. Egan. 
net , $1.50. 

FOR THE WHITE ROSE. Hinkson. 
net , $0.75. 

FRED’S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 
Smith, net , $ 0 . 75 . 

FREDDY CARR’S ADVENTURES. 

Garrold, S.J. net , $1.00. 

FREDDY CARR AND HIS FRIENDS. 

Garrold, S.J. net , $1.00. 

GOLDEN LILY, THE. Hinkson. net , 
$0.75. 

GREAT CAPTAIN, THE. Hinkson. 
net , $0.75. 

HALDEMAN CHILDREN, THE. 

Mannix. net , $0.75. 

HARMONY FLATS. Whitmire, net , 
$1.00. 

HARRY DEE. Finn, S.J. net , $1.50. 
HARRY RUSSELL. Copus, S.J. net , 
$1.50. 

HEIR OF DREAMS, AN. O’Malley. 
net , $0.75. 

HELD IN THE EVERGLADES. 

Spalding, S.J. net , $1.50. 

HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEAR¬ 
ANCE. Finn, S.J. net , $1.50. 

HIS LUCKIEST YEAR. Finn, S.J. 
net , $1.50. 

HOSTAGE OF WAR, A. Bonesteel. 
net , $0.7 


HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY. 
Egan, net , $1.00. 

IN QUEST OF ADVENTURE. Man¬ 
nix. net, $0.75. 

IN QUEST OF THE GOLDEN 
CHEST. Barton, net, $1.00. 
JACK. By a Religious, H.C.J. net , 
$0.75. 

JACK-O’LANTERN. Waggaman. 

net, $0.75. 

JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. 

Taggart, net, $1.00. 

JUNIOR’S OF ST. BEDE’S. Bryson. 
net , $1.00. 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First 
Series, net, 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Second 
Series, net, $1 . ko. 

KLONDIKE PICNIC, A. Donnelly. 
net, $1.00. 

LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE 
HOLY CHILD JESUS. Lutz. a net . 
Si. 00. 

LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES. 

Delaware, net $0.75. 

LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST. 

Roberts, net, $0.75. 

LITTLE LADY OF THE HALL. 

Ryeman. net , $0.7 ■>. 1 

LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE 
LAKE. Nixon-Roulet. net , $1.00. 
LITTLE MISSY. Waggaman. net , 
$0.75. 

LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCAR¬ 
LET. Taggart, net, $1.50. 
LUCKY BOB. Finn, S.J. net, $1.50. 
MADCAP SET AT ST.,-ANNE’S. Bru- 
nowe. net, $0.75. 

MAD KNIGHT, THE. Schaching. 
net , $0.75. 

MAKING OF MORTLAKE. Copus, 
S.J. net, $1.50. 

MAN FROM NOWHERE. Sadlier. 
net, Si.50. 

MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS. 

Spalding, S.J. net, Si.50. 

MARY TRACY’S FORTUNE. Sad¬ 
lier. net, $0.75. 

MELOR OF THE SILVER HAND. 

Bearne, S.J. net , $1.50. 

MILLY AVELING. Smith, net , $ijoo. 
MIRALDA. Johnson, net , $0.75. 
MORE FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. 

By a Religious, net , $1.00. 

MOSTLY BOYS. Finn, S.J. net, $1.50. 
MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. Sadlier. 
net, S0.75. 

MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL. 

Sadlier. net, Si.00. 

MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY. Barton. 
net, $i.00. 

NAN NOBODY. Waggaman. nxi . 
$0.75. 


NED RIEDER. Wehs. net, $1.00. 
NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE’S. 

Bruno we. net , $1.00. 

OLD CHARLMONT’S SEED-BED. 
Smith, net , $0.75. 

OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE. 

Spalding, S.J. net , $1.50. 

ON THE OLD CAMPING GROUND. 

Mannix. net , $1.50. 

OUR LADY’S LUTENIST. Bearne, 
SJ. net , $1.50. 

PANCHO AND PANCHITA. Man¬ 
nix. net , $0.75. 

PAULINE ARCHER. Sadlier. net , 
$0.75. 

PERCY WYNN. Finn, S.J. «e/,$i.5o. 
PERIL OF DIONYSIO. Mannix. 
net , $0.75. 

PETRONILLA. Donnelly. net, 
$1.00. 

PICKLE AND PEPPER. Dorsey. 
net, $1.50. 

PILGRIM FROM IRELAND. Car¬ 
not. net, $0.75. 

PLAYWATER PLOT, THE. Wagga- 
man. net, $1.00. 

POLLY DAY’S ISLAND. Roberts. 
net, $1.50. 

POVERiNA. Buckenham. net, $1.00. 
QUEEN’S PAGE, THE. Hinkson. net , 
$0.75. 

QUEEN’S PROMISE, THE. Wagga- 
man. net, $1.00. 

QUEST OF MARY SELWYN. Clem- 
entia. net, $1.50. 

RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. Spald¬ 
ing, S.T. net, $1.50. 

RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. 

Bonesteel. net, $0.75. 
RIDINGDALE FLOWER SHOW. 

Bearne. S.J. net, $1.50. 

ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SIIOON. 

Bearne, S.J. net, $1.50. 

ST. CUTHBERT’S. Copus, S.J. net, 
$1.50. 

SANDY JOE. Waggaman. net, 
$1.50- 

SEA-GULL’S ROCK. Sandeau. net , 
$0.75. 


SEVEjn LITTLE MARSHALLS. 

Nixon-Roulet. net , $0.75. 
SHADOWS LIFTED. Copus, S.J. 
net , $1.50. 

SHEER PLUCK. Bearne, S.J. net, 
Si. 50. 

SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK. 

Spalding, S.J. net , $1.50. 
SHIPMATES. Waggaman. net, $1.00. 
SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER. Spald¬ 


ing, S.J. net , $i.«;o. 

SUMMER AT WOODVILLE. Sad¬ 
lier. net , $0.75. 

TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE 
MIDDLE AGES, de Capella. net. 
Si 00. 

TALISMAN, THE. Sadlier. net, 

$1.00. 

TAMING OF POLLY. Dorsey, net. 
Si.50. 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME. Finn, S.J. 

net, $t.50. 

THAT OFFICE BOY. Finn, S.J. net . 
Si.50. 

THREE LITTLE GIRLS AND ESPE¬ 
CIALLY ONE. Taggart, net, $0.75. 
TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT. Salome. 

net, Si.oo. 

TOM LOSELY; BOY. Copus, S.J. 

net, Si.50. 

TOM PLAYFAIR. Finn, S.J. net, 

TOM’S LUCK-POT. Waggaman. net, 
$0.75. 

TOORALLADDY. Walsh, net. $0.75. 
TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE. 

Waggaman. net, $1.00. 

TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUN¬ 
TAIN. Taggart, net, Si.oo. 

TWO LITTLE GIRLS. Mace. net, 
S0.75. 

UNCLE FRANK’S MARY. Clemen¬ 
tly. net, Si.50. 

UPS AND DOWNS OF MARJORIE. 

Waggaman. net, $0.75. 

VIOLIN MAKER. Smith, net, $0.75. 
WINNETOU, THE APACHE 
KNIGHT. Taggart, net , $1.00. 
YOUNG COLOR GUARD. Boni- 
steel. net , $0.75. 


VII. NOVELS 

ISABEL C. CLARKE’S GREAT NOV- THE REST HOUSE. 
ELS. Each, net, $2.25. ONLY ANNE. 


URSULA FINCH. 

THE ELSTONES. 

EUNICE. 

LADY TRENT’S DAUGHTEP 
CHILDREN OF EVE. 

THE DEEP HEART. 

WHOSE NAME IS LEGION. 
FINE CLAY. 

PRISONERS’ YEARS. 


THE SECRET CITADEL. 

BY THE BLUE RIVER. 

AGATHA’S HARD SAYING. Mul- 
holland. net . $1.65. 

ALBERTA: ADVENTURESS. L’Er- 
mitp. 8vo net, $2.25. 

BACK TO THE WORLD. Champol, 
net , $2.25. 


ie 


BARRIER, THE. Bazin, net $i.6s. 
BALLADS OF CHILDHOOD. Poems. 

Earls, S.J. i2tno. net , $1.50. 
BLACK BROTHERHOOD, THE. 

Garrold, S.J. net , $2.25. 

BOND AND FREE. Connor, net, 
$1.00. 

“BUT THY LOVE AND THY 
GRACE.” Finn, S.J. net , $1.50. 
BY THE BLUE RIVER. Clarke. 
net , $2.25. 

CARROLL DARE. Waggaman. net, 
$1.25. 

CIRCUS-RIDER’S DAUGHTER. 

Brackel. net , $1.25. 

CHILDREN OF EVE. Clarke, net, 
$2.25. 

CONNOR D’ARCY’S STRUGGLES. 

Bertholds. net , $1.25. 

CORINNE’S VOW. Waggaman. net, 

DAUGHTER OF KINGS, A. Hink- 
son. net , $2.25. 

DEEP HEART, THE. Clarke, net, 
$2.25. 

DION AND THE SIBYLS. Keon. 
net, $1.25. 

ELDER MISS AINSBOROUGH, THE 
Taggart, net, $1.25. 

ELSTONES, THE. Clarke, net, $2.25. 
EUNICE. Clarke, net, $2.25. 
FABIOLA. Wiseman, net, $1.00. 
FABIOUA’S SISTERS. Clarke, net, 

FATa£ BEACON, THE. Brackel. 
net, $1.25. 

FAUSTULA. Ayscough. net, $2.25. 
FINE CLAY. Clarke, net, $2.25. 
FORGIVE AND FORGET. Lingen. 
net, $1.25. 

GRAPES OF THORNS. Waggaman. 
net , $1.25. 

HE ART. OF A MAN. Maher, net , 

$2.25. 

HEARTS OF GOLD. Edhor. net, 

$1.25. 

HEIRESS OF CRONEN STEIN. 

Hahn-Hahn. net, $1.00. 

HER BLIND JFOLLY. Holt, net, 

HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. Hink- 
son. net, $2.25. 

HER FATHER’S SHARE. Power. 

net , $1.25. 

HER JOURNEY’S END. Cooke. 
net, $1.25. 

IDOLS; or THE SECRET OF THE 
RUE CHAUSSE D’ANTIN. de 
Navery. net, $1.25. 

IN GOD’S GOOD TIME. Ross, net. 
Si.00. 

IN SPJTE OF ALL. Staniforth, net, 


IN THE DAYS OF KING HAL. 

Taggart, net , $1.25. 

IVY HEDGE, THE. Egan, net, 
► $2.25. 

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS. 

Harrison, net, $1.25. 

LADY TRENT’S DAUGHTER. 

Clarke, net , $2.2?. 

LIGHT OF HIS COUNTENANCE. 
Hart, net , $1.00. 

“LIKE UNTO A MERCHANT.” 
Gray, net , $2.25. 

LINKED LIVES. Douglas, net, $2.25. 
LITTLE CARDINAL. Parr, net, 

$1.65. 

LOVE OF BROTHERS. Hinkson. net, 

$2.25. 

MARCELLA GRACE. Mulholland. 

net, Si.25. 

MARIE OF THE HOUSE D’ANTERS. 

Earls, S.J. net , $2.25. 

MELCHIOR OF BOSTON. Earls, 
S.J. net , $1.25. 

MIGHTY FRIEND, THE. L’Ermite. 
net , $2.25. 

MIRROR OF SHALOTT. Benson. 
net , $2.25. 

MISS ERIN. Francis, net, $1.25. 
MR. BILLY BUTTONS. Lecky. net, 
$1.65. 

MONK’S PARDON, THE. de Nav¬ 
ery. net, $1.25. 

MY LADY BEATRICE. Cooke, net , 
$1.00. 

NOT A JUDGMENT. Keon. net, 
$1.65. 

ONLY ANNE. Clarke, net, $2.25. 
OTHER MISS LISLE. Martin, net, 
$1.00. 

OUT OF BONDAGE. Holt, net, 
$1.25. 

OUTLAW OF CAMARGUE. deLa- 
mothe. net , Si.25. 

PASSING SHADOWS. Yorke. net, 
$1.65. 

PERE MONNIER’S WARD. Lecky. 
net , $1.65. 

PILKINGTON HEIR, THE. Sad- 
lier. net , $1.25. 

PRISONERS’ YEARS. Clarke, net , 
$2.25. 

PRODIGAL’S DAUGHTER, THE, 
AND OTHER STORIES. Bugg. 
net , $1.50. 

PROPHET’S WIFE. Browne, net, 

$1.25. 

RED INN OF ST. LYPHAR. Sad- 
lier. net , $1.25. 

REST HOUSE, THE. Clarke, net, 
$2.25. 

ROSE OF THE WORLD. Martin. 
net , S1.25. 


IX 


ROUND TABLE OF AMERICAN 
CATHOLIC NOVELISTS. net ,% 1.25. 

ROUND TABLE OF FRENCH CATH¬ 
OLIC NOVELISTS, net , $1.25. 

ROUND TABLE OF GERMAN 
CATHOLIC NOVELISTS. net , 

ROUND TABLE OF IRISH AND 
ENGLISH CATHOLIC NOVEL¬ 
ISTS. net , $1.25. 

RUBY CROSS, THE. Wallace, net , 
$1.25. 

RULER OF THE KINGDOM. Keon. 
net , $1.65. 

SECRET CITADEL, THE. Clarke. 
net , $2.25. 

SECRET OF THE GREEN VASE. 
Cooke, net , $1.00. 

SHADOW OF EVERSLEIGH. Lans- 
downe . net , $1.00. 

SHIELD OF SILENCE Henry-Rut- 
FIN. net , $2.25. 

SO AS BY FIRE. Connor, net , $1.25. 

SON OF SIRO, THE. Copus, S.J. 
net , $2.25. 

STORY OF CECILIA, THE. Hinkson. 
net , $1.65. 

STUORE. Earls, S.J. net , $1.50. 

TEMPEST OF THE HEART. Gray. 
net , $1.25. 

TEST OF COURAGE. Ross, net, 
Si .00. 

MAN’S DAUGHTER. Ross. 
net , $1.25. 

THEIR CHOICE. Skinner, net . 


THROUGH THE DESERT. Sien- 
kiewicz. net , $2.25. 

TIDEWAY, THE. Ayscough. net , 
$2.25. 

TRAINING OF SILAS. Devxne. net , 
$1.65. 

TRUE STORY OF MASTER 
GERARD. Sadlter. net , $1.65. 

TURN OF THE TIDE, THE. Gray. 
net , $1.25. 

UNBIDDEN GUEST, THE. Cooke. 
net , $1. 00. 

UNDER THE CEDARS AND THE 
STARS. Canon Sheehan, net , $2.25. 

UP IN ARDMUIRLAND. Barrett, 
O.S.B. net , $1.65. 

URSULA FINCH. Clarke, net , $2.25. 

VOCATION OF EDWARD CONWAY, 
THE. Egan, net , $1.65. 

WARGRAVE TRUST, THE. Reud. 
net , $1. 65. 

WAR MOTHERS. Poems. Garesche, 
S.J. net , $0.60. 

WAY THAT LED BEYOND, THE. 
Harrison, net . $1.25. 

WEDDING BELLS OF GLENDA- 
lough, the. Earls, s.j. net , 

WHEN’ LOVE IS STRONG. Keon. 
net , $1.65. 

WHOSE NAME IS LEGION. Clarke. 

net , $2.25. 

WOMAN OF FORTUNE, A. Rsb 
net, $1.65. 








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